Today I became a statistic. This morning in the beautiful predawn light of the Khumbu, Kami and I started up the icefall for our final rotation. The stars were just yielding to the dawn light as we put our crampons on at the edge of the icefall. Our camp is about a 10 or 15 minute walk along a rocky moraine from where the actual climbing begins so we wait till the edge to of the ice to don our steel spikes. Cold and calm are the safest conditions for transiting this first section of our climb making this the perfect weather for my fourth trip up through this crystal palace. I love this kind of morning. Light and life are subdued. The only sound is the rhythmic crunch of snow underfoot. We slowly begin to work higher. The lower part of the icefall is like dozens of 20 and 30 foot waves that have flash frozen in place. By now most of the steeper faces have steps kicked in and lack any technical challenge. At the top of each wave you cross over and descend back into the trough of the next. After a while the troughs become shallower and the ice begins to steepen. Now looking down it is surprising how far and how high you have come. The tents of base camp are multicolored dots in the distance. The sun is just touching the top of Pumori in the distance with yellow fire. It is here you cross the first few crevasse ladders. Up till now we have easily stepped across these dark voids; a few we jumped. We are entering the infamous “pop corn” section. Here the ice is like thousands of giant popcorn balls all crushed together with voids and round surfaces and attention demanding steps. Unfortunately, this section doesn’t allow for casual contemplation. It is constantly moving – not in slow motion but in fits and starts. We are now moving into the area that demands a more hurried approach yet early in the season it seems to go on forever. Occasionally there are creaks and groans that accompany millions of tons of ice crowding down the mountain. Finally, we begin to top out and start a rightward traverse into a spectacular ice canyon. The dangers here are obvious and tower over our left shoulder. Some of these giant seracs even lien precariously over our path. Every step the ice underfoot shatters like cheap glass. This morning it is obvious that part of the canyon wall has toppled. A not subtle reminder that somewhere under our feet in thousands of tons of ice lies the remains of our friend and two of his unfortunate traveling companions. No explanation other than the wrong place at the wrong time. This morning I am having a difficult time seeing the ethereal beauty of this place. For the last hour I have felt something wasn’t right. I was growing increasingly tired on familiar terrain. I have tried to convince myself that there were easy answers – all in my head, distracted, stayed up to late, dehydrated, hungry. I keep thinking about the man we listened to on the radio at Camp One last night who was in distress. He was scarred. His climbing companions were scarred. You could hear it in their voices. There was discussion of making a night descent through the icefall. Finally the decision was made to put him on O2 for the night and bring him through this morning. We have yet to meet them. On Everest everyone makes their own decisions until you have accumulated so many bad ones you lose that right. Then someone else must make those decisions for you. This is what had happen to this man. He had made a whole series of bad decisions the biggest of which was continuing upward when he was moving slowly and not doing well. Now he was in trouble and people he didn’t even know where making his decisions. This is extremely bad form. Supposedly if you come to Everest you have proven you know enough about altitude to know the difference between the normal feeling like “crap” and when the bad feelings are not normal. Mine wasn’t normal. I turned and started down. I generally assume I can go down in a third to a quarter of the time it took to go up. This morning it took me as long to go down as it had to go up. By the time I reached base camp I went straight, albeit very slowly, to the temporary medical clinic run by HRA. I interrupted Luanne and Eric’s, the two selfless doctors who staff the clinic during the climbing season, breakfast. And at that moment I didn’t care. My heart was racing like I was running sprints and I was lying down. At home my heart rate will drop 50 beats per minute in less than two minutes after a 300-yard sprint. Then I start my next run. This morning an hour later my rate has just barely begun to drop. The best sign something is really wrong is when the doctor tells you your climb is over and you don’t care. A few hours later I would care immensely but at that moment it didn’t matter. Maybe that is the best way to know it is time to go down. The docs wanted me to take a helicopter to Kathmandu. Helicopters do come into base camp but it is dangerous because of the altitude. In fact there are helicopter wrecks scattered around base camp so I decided I could at least hike the four hours and 2,000 feet lower to Lobuche where it would be much safer. Within an hour I was packed and headed down hill. I hardly had time to say goodbye to my teammates that were in camp and I didn’t get to talk to the ones who were at higher camps. At Lobuche I spent the night and the next morning the weather broke clear and calm. The path it had taken ten days to hike up we covered in 15 minutes by helicopter. It was a subtle reminder how high we still were when I noticed the pilot was on oxygen when he touched down at Lobuche and stayed on oxygen until we were below Lukla. High altitude sinus tachycardia was the diagnosis. Very possibly self-induced. I had begun taking an over the counter decongestant that is occasionally known (apparently by everyone but me) to cause rapid heart beat. Apparently I had a bad reaction to it. In either case I will have it checked when I get home before I start back training for next year. So ends my 2006 Everest expedition. I can’t deny my disappointment. One more rotation, sometime down valley recharging and then wait for the summit shot. Unfortunately, this was not my year. Seventy-two hours I was back in Georgia feeling disconcerted. I am thankful for the experience. There is no way to describe the thrill of actually climbing on Everest. The only thing in climbing that could be better would be summiting. Thank you for sharing this journey with me. If I am fortunate enough to have another attempt at Everest I intend to do a better job with this web site. I have learned a few things about keeping it current and downloading pictures that hopefully will make it a more enjoyable read.