"I succumbed, dropped to my knees, and shed tears, and with wet face I plunged my axe into the icy snow...."

While we three [Dan Mazur, Durga and Jangbu] waited to see who it might be descending the slope from Camp 3 to Camp 2, we had a look at the remains of Camp 2. The wind was still fully blowing, with snow-bearing gusts bouncing and rocketing through the camp, and it was necessary to face away from the breeze.

The sun was out and when I turned to look away from the tiny ice bullets raking my face, I could see that the camp was located on a plateau. I walked a bit across the plateau, and had a brief glimpse at the edge. I saw there was a long slope down toward some large white ice blocks and seracs, and beyond that, I saw only the Tibetan plateau in the distance, yawning and stretching to infinity, with only a few snowy mountains along the rim.

Somewhere down below the precipice, our tents were perched and I imagined them, fully intact, perched along the top of an ice block. But no, I thought again, they probably looked like a pile of broken kites after a hurricane down in some crevasse.

As I turned away, back into the wind, and glanced furtively against the snow-laden wind to the towering peaks around us, and at the shattered remains of Camp 2, the power of the moment swept over me.

So much had happened. The elation of our team members reaching their summits, the disappointment of defeat for those who did not. The confusion about motivations of members who departed early; the anger and feelings of violation of having two tents stolen by other teams; the frustrating rescue and startling, sad death of the climber from our neighboring team in Base Camp; the worry and stress over a possible rescue of Yang; the heartbreaking realization that all of our camps were wrecked and stripped from the mountain.

The emotional exhaustion and the toll of two nights with almost no sleep, coupled with the pressure of all we had been through, made me pause and a simultaneous extra-strong wind blast caused a stumble. I succumbed, dropped to my knees, and shed tears, and with wet face I plunged my axe into the icy snow.

Hunkered down, I stared to the ground, to the white crunchy snow I was kneeling into, coughed a bit of blood into my face mask, and noticed a small pile of trash at my feet, fluttering in the wind. A pile of cramponed, empty plastic foil, freeze-dried food bags, left by some quickly departing team.

I gave a prayer to the gods, and apologized for our simple and sometimes mistaken ways, and asked forgiveness, and only that we would be allowed to leave peacefully and safely, with no more tragedy.

I thought of the steady stream of refugees and traders, their yaks and rucksacks laden, whom we had seen trudging slowly past Base Camp, yak bells jingling, herders crying out, singing into the wind, winding their way across the Nangpa La pass from Tibet into Nepal. Some of them had come from as far away as Amdo and western Szechuan.

When I thought of their courage, toughness, and anguish, this gave me strength and I knew our situation was one of luxurious suffering in comparison, and I wished them well, and stood up to try and be strong again and to carry on with whatever the day would bring. It was 3pm, we were high on the mountain in bad weather and I hoped we would survive...