The time has stopped, each second is pure bliss, the view is breathtaking. But the clouds pass over our heads at incredible speeds and it is not a good sign. I have never seen such fast clouds and so close. I guess its a normal sight at over 7000 meters. Lakpa points at the clouds and tells me we should go down. Its time to start again. We are roped in and I proceed to climbing down the final slope, it is very steep, almost vertical and I pay great attention to each step. Its been almost 10 hours since we left camp 3 and fatigue will come soon.

On the way down, I hug Florence who is going up with Chris and Ongshu and wish her the best for the final meters, they congratulate us. There is no turning back for them now.

I walk in front of Lakpa, keep my footsteps as wide as I can to avoid hitting my legs with my sharp crampons. It is an easy mistake on the way down to cut yourself or tear your boots with a crampon. Fatigue catches up with me and I have to pay even more attention to each steps. Keeping maximum concentration on the way down is critical. I have barely had any water for over 10 hours, my thermos cap has frozen tight with the cold and my hot tea is sadly unreachable. 2 gels and 1 bar are the only food that I have had since we left.

I look back at the summit and, at around 11-1130am, I see Florence, Chris and Ongshu Sherpa on the summit. Emotions overwhelm me, they have made it too!

From now onwards, its a very long way down, around 5 hours of walking. I am only clipped on the fixed rope with a screw-gate karabiner and a 1-meter long sling. Worst case scenario my fall will be stopped at the next fixed rope change. Each piece of fixed rope is around 50 to 100 meters, and anchored with a snow stake.

We keep walking down. Later during the day Chris and Florence catch up with me. I have slowed down significantly. I am exhausted.

I finally get news of Glenn from Chris. I figured he had turned back but didn’t know the specifics. He was too cold and tired and decided to turn around around 2:30 / 3am. Chris had hard from him on the radio before he turned around but I had no idea and I am glad to hear that he went back to Camp 3 and met with Xavier there.

Another few hours and we hit the ice-wall. Its time to take out the figure 8 and abseil down the wall. There is a small crevasse right at the end of the wall.

The last hour of walking back up to camp 3 is a drag, we are walking so slow we could crawl at the same speed. We are dead tired. We finally reach the tents, 1 of them is missing. Xavier and Glenn have left to base camp. I am sharing the tent with Chris tonight. A noodle soup and we get into our sleeping bags to warm up and rest.

My feet are frozen and I am quite concerned. They are totally numb. I keep massaging them but nothing changes. I take some aspirin and put some warm bottles of water against my feet in my sleeping bag. I cannot sleep, I am too concerned with my feet. I drift in and out of sleep the entire night.