On Sunday, February 15th, our huddle in Camp 2 awoke to the wind still battering the tent. Sometime during the night Artur had received a SMS (or phone call, I can't remember) with a weather update stating some possibility of lower summit winds on Tuesday the 17th. As we were already in the thick of things, I also decided that we might as well try, day-by-day from this point, to see if the winds would in fact decrease a little - that a decent window might somehow appear.

Artura left the tent first, followed by Robert perhaps 45 minutes later. Ali, who spent the night alone in the Vaude tent was next to leave, followed by myself about an hour later. Qadrat would wait in Camp 2 for Amin, who was in "superhero mode" somewhere above Camp 1, on his way up from Base Camp.

The winds were noticeably lower than two days prior, and the intermittent sunshine provided some welcome warmth, despite the cold bitter squall. Above the rock pinnacles at apox. 6500 meters, I caught up behind Ali, Artur, and Robert, and the four of us would continue in queue behind Robert up to the final pitch below Camp 3. Here the winds increased significant; the temperature noticeably dropped, and visibility began to diminish under blowing snow and clouds. By the time we reached the final rope, I could see Amin and Qadrat below us, gaining ground - but the weather was seriously deteriorating.

I watched Ali top out over the final ridge, followed by Robert, Artur and I. As I crested the Camp 3 ridge, I was greeted by even higher winds and blowing snow. "It's going to be a little tough to set up the tent in this," I thought to myself. But we managed - barely. In the waning light, the tent was finally pitched, but one third of it hung rather precariously over the void. Once inside, I began to warm my frozen feet over the stove - until the radio call came in from the Pakistani tent, informing us that Qadrat had suffered some frostbite while they were setting up their tent. I put my boots on and climbed out of the crammed tent, then down the rock slabs in the dark to the other tent. After a brief conversation and inspecting Qadrat's fingers, I returned to our tent to get the emergency oxygen bottle we had stashed in Camp 3 a few weeks prior, and filled a bag of snow for the Pakistanis to melt for drinks. (Oxygen therapy immediately after frostbite limits some tissue damage.)

Back in our tent, the night was cramped, cold, and windy, but despite my weird body position and face full of frozen nylon, I slept pretty well - perhaps too well. Maybe it's because Amin had brought us a bag of pre-cooked chicken from base camp, which we boiled and ate for supper, drinking the pot -glop for a nice soup. Rarely does one get to eat so well, so high in elevation.

I awoke around 8am to the tent being absolutely battered by gusts of wind. "If this gets any stronger, we're gonna get blown off the mountain," I thought, and immediately put my boots on and started packing my things. Artur made a quick brew, but just as we were getting ready to exit the tent, the inevitable occurred. I just happened to be filming at the time:

(You were supposed to view a video here, but Don is having problems sending it through his Thuraya Satellite phone. Hopefully we will see it soon!!!)

After we got the tent semi-under-control from the inside, I quickly jumped outside to hold on from there. Shortly after, Robert and Artur exited, and we began a desperate attempt to dismantle the tent. Halfway through, it was obvious that the high winds would not allow us to organize things and properly stash any of our gear. Every 30-40 seconds we each had to stop and take breaks to warm our hands, pulling our fingers inside our mitts. We finally flipped the tent over and wrapped the entire thing into a sorta nylon burrito, tied with rope as tight as we could get it. After it was secure (mostly), we threw the depot gear bag on top and clipped it to the rope. It was at this time that I realized my climbing harness was still inside the burrito. Somehow, it did not get thrown out with my pack. It was far too cold and things were getting desperate, making the option of untying the whole ordeal and searching for it out of the question. Instead, I unclipped a short piece of webbing from my pack and clipped it around my waist with a carabineer borrowed from Artur. I would have to do the "hand-wrap-rappel" decent all the way to the glacier. I put on my pack, climbed to the edge of the ridge, wrapped my right hand around the 4mm rope, and stepped over the ridge. I didn't say a prayer first. I said a prayer the whole way down.