Four days ago, four of us — Jon, Chris, Mike and Yang — were fed up with the hurricane-strength winds at Camp 2. After our second night there, we decided to descend to ABC for several days of sleep and meals.

My goal was to get to Camp 3 to set up the two tents Dan and Jangbu carried up there the week before. These two tents were stashed in the snow right on the path marked by wands (bamboo poles used to mark the route) and Dan was worried that they might be stolen. I was unable to get there, but instead spent the entire afternoon digging out our tents at Camp 2 from the large amounts of spindrift that covered them the night before.

Before we went down, I also erected a fourth tent (two-man Bibler) so that Camp 2 could then comfortably sleep 8-10. We then started to descend as the winds increased and intermittent gusts occasionally knocked me of the trail.

The day after we reached ABC, a group of eight — Dan, John, Tim, Ed, Ian, Ropair, Jangbu and Durga — from our team left for their summit bid. On Sept. 30th, at our regular 7pm evening radio call, Dan called from Camp 2, asking where the fourth tent was. After I verified its position, he said it was not there. It had been staked down at 10 points and the wands that held it in place were still in the snow, unbroken.

Conclusion: stolen.

A bunch of swearing took place on my end. I can only imagine what Dan thought. This evening's radio call brought the news that one of the tents stashed at Camp 3 was also stolen. Plucked up by a team member or Sherpa of the many teams that were leaving the mountain.

It is hard for me to imagine what sort of person would do this. We are all mountaineers with a common cause. A tent is one's lifelink on the mountain. It takes much energy to carry gear up to the high camps. To have your tent missing when you expect it to be there after a tiring day of hiking up from a lower camp, or even worse, when returning from the summit completely exhausted and dehydrated, can be like cutting the rope of a rock climber on lead.

High altitude tents are expensive items and I can only imagine that there are those climbing this mountain, like many other popular routes on popular mountains, who have so much greed that they think nothing of the welfare of others.

If stolen tents are not enough, yesterday Phil came back down to ABC after not being able to make it to Camp 2. He had caught the shits and was weak. The wind from the last five days took down tents, but worse, flew feces everywhere.

This is a great hazard of routes that have many climbers. Camp 1 is dotted with hundreds of brown spots and deposits of TP. Flying feces from last week's windstorms has left a microscopic bacterial wasteland covering the entire camp. I do not think boiling your melted snow water is a safe guarantee, for at that altitude one would have to continually boil one's water for over 20 minutes. A non-practicality when fuel is limited. We all plan to bring iodine pills in the future.

Other than these annoyances, the team remains strong and a group of us — Jon, Phil, Mike and Chris — plan to climb to Camp 1 tomorrow, hoping to summit on Oct. 5 or 6. The weather will be the deciding factor. If the weather holds, Dan's team will move up to Camp 3 today for a possible summit attempt.

— Jon Otto, MountainZone.com Correspondent