We started about 9:00 AM. It is a 30 to 45 minute walk from our camp to the edge of the icefall where we stop to put on our crampons, helmet, and climbing harness. It is at times like this that words fail me. To be surrounded by this massive ice playground is impossible to describe. Everywhere you look nature has sculpted massive monuments and delicate ice sculptures. Low spots where melted water gathers in the afternoons are pastel blues. The crevasses range from ice blue to green ultimately black in their deepest recesses. If you raise your sights there are beautiful gray and brown mountains that seem to poke defiantly into the wind making there on weathers. Great chunks of ice and snow, some as large as the Super dome hang on their side like precarious jewels. They seem to defy gravity until suddenly they let go and crash to the valley floor below send spindrift for miles. At about 11:30 we reach the high point of our trip today. The first double ladder crossing. Frequently in the Khumbu the crevasses (or cracks in the ice) are so large and deep that they can not be down climbed or circumvented. In those cases 20-foot ladders are laid across them. When one ladder will not reach they lap the ladders and tie them together with rope at the lap. They are amazingly strong and I have been told they can go up to 14 sections this way although it has been many years since an obstacle required that. I expect to see up to seven sections. There are two fixed lines along each side that you clip into. As you walk out onto the sections you position your crampon spikes between rungs. It does bounce a bit but at least it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. It really is more about mind control and concentration than anything else. After practicing for awhile we started down. By now I was not feeling well. I had run out of water and could no longer spit. My mouth was so dry I even had to whisper. It seems crazy but even though we were well above 18,000 feet the sides of the valley reflect all the sun back down and it is unbearably hot. The humidity here is about 10% so you lose tremendous moisture just breathing. I was very dehydrated when I finally got down. I will leave earlier and take more water next time