It's a wrap!
Finally, after twenty-two hours of effort and endurance everyone has arrived back at camp 4. Paul is tired but ok, as are Luis, Lakpa, Kami, and Pemba Tenzing who stayed with him every step of the way down. By the time I'm writing this they will be eating soup and tucking into their sleeping bags with their arms wrapped around a nice orange bottle of oxygen. I suspect sleep will not be a problem tonight - I know it won't be for me.
Our next scheduled radio call is for 8:00 tomorrow morning when I'm hoping to get a few words from one of the guides - provided they can talk well enough to talk to me. Breathing oxygen for so long badly dries out their respiratory systems so everyone is usually pretty hoarse and coughing for several days afterward.
Tired as the team is, the job isn't quite over yet. Tomorrow (May 31) they will descend the Lhotse Face and spend their last night up on the mountain at camp 2, which will seem like a paradise compared to where they've been. And the following day (June 1) they are base camp bound, which also means the last trip down through the icefall. That is never to be taken for granted, especially this late in the season when ice is melting and shifting. I am never truely happy until everyone is safely back in base camp.
And since I am also running on about three hours of sleep since the team took off, this is Ellie signing off until tomorrow.
— Ellie Henke, Alpine Ascents International Base Camp Manager and MountainZone.com Correspondent