Hello all you cybernauts, this is Vern Tejas with Alpine Ascents Mount Everest 2002 Expedition.

What a breathtaking day it was, in more ways than one. We made our way up here, breathing many, many times per step. We used the old positive breathing technique and put it to good use. Over the last nine, 10 hours we've been slowly crawling our way up the Lhotse Face .

And we're now perched in a spectacular place, 7,155 meters above sea level, and, of course, for those who haven't quite caught up with the rest of the world, that's 23,760 feet above sea level.

The clouds are blowing in and out and, from time to time, we get a little bit of a revelation, we can see Cho Oyu off to the west; a beautiful, beautiful afternoon. We lucked out with the weather and we also lucked out with the health. It seems like everybody's pulling together. The team's in very good spirits and we're happy to be here, somewhat tired of course, but enjoying our perch high on the Lhotse Face.

Ahhhhh, we are now brewing up, get our hot drinks around, satisfy everybody's needs then we're going to cook dinner and hopefully everybody's appetites will at least be able to force down a cupful of the wonderful one-pot glop from high on the sides of Mount Everest.

And that's pretty much it for now, but stay tuned for tomorrow we'll go a little bit higher, the high point for probably most of the crew is my guess, but we'll tell you all about that manana. This is Vernon, clear.

— Vern Tejas, Alpine Ascents International Guide and MountainZone.com Correspondent

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