This was the day that we finally had to take down our base camp, and carry all our camp gear and climbing equipment to high camp. Here, we would spend our last night on the mountain, ready to begin our summit attempt after a short night of sleep.

Climbing up the glaciers in rope teams, we again rose above the clouds, providing another opportunity to enjoy the "top of the world" feeling that it provides.

Somewhere around 8000 feet, our guides found a location they were happy with; on top of an isolated ridge right next to a crevasse! At first, this sounds like a terrible place to camp. However, crevasses take stress out of the glacier, and so the area adjacent to a crevasse is relatively stress-free, and therefore relatively likely to be free of other crevasses. In addition, snow must stretch to go over a ridge (just as it must compress to go through a valley) making it likely that any crevasses would be visible, not lurking under the surface.

Arriving at this location, we explored an area big enough to call our home by sending one person (on a rope) out to probe it for hidden crevasses with an ice axe. When the area was declared safe, we marked its perimeter by laying a rope out on the snow, and set up our tents in the safe area.

By three PM, we had camp set up, giving us a chance to rest, giving the brave (not me!) a chance to take a top-of-the-world-view snow bath, and allowing us to go to bed early (around 5 PM) to try to rest up for an early start for the summit the next day.

I will guarantee that camping within six feet of a crevasse, each of us made sure that we were wide awake before stepping outside to go to the bathroom at night!