January 9, 2008 – Back at High Camp

It is just past 6pm now and the entire team is safely back at Berlin High Camp at 19,000 feet. Once again, congratulations everyone on an excellent summit day. Nathan and John and a couple of others commented from the summit team as they came in, "Boy, was it tougher coming down than going up." It's often like that in mountaineering and it was like that today because the winds did show up just like the weather forecast had said on our descent. We thought we would beat the high winds to the summit, we did but it was challenging coming down and we got back to find that Simon was working hard to keep our tents up at High Camp at 19,000 feet.

We have a fantastic crew tonight, we'll keep those tents solid, and the guys are cooking inside one of the A-frame shelters. A lot of pride, exhaustion and relief to be back in high camp tonight.