It's been one year since I made my summit push on Mt. Everest. We officially left the South Col at 8pm on Thursday, May 12th, 2011. At around 3am on the 13th (Friday the 13th, I might add), I suddenly hit this unsurmountable wall and had to re-evaluate my situation, eventually deciding to turn around and give up the summit. I've described what happened on that day before in past posts, but here it is again in video format (it's good to relive memories, right?). My past videos for the most part have been fun and light-hearted, but this one is a little more emotional (for me, at least). The whole summit push experience really drained me and it was such a heart wrenching experience. I'm happy to share that moment with all of you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j543NmgrjqE&feature=g-all-u
On a side note, things are looking up on Everest this season. The end of the week looks to have lighter winds and if things go according to plan, we'll be seeing some people go for the summit. The fixed ropes are only up to the Balcony at the moment, 4 hours up from Camp 4 (The South Col). I'm assuming the rest of the fixing up to the summit will happen as people go for the summit. For more updates on what's going on over there, check out Peak Freak's blog, or Alan Arnette's blog (he's got some sweet coverage of all the teams out there).