We made the climb to Camp One on Saturday. It was a long grueling day. To understand the IceFall a little local geography might help. Everest is part of a three mountain group which includes Lhotse (the fourth highest mountain in the world I believe) and Nuptse (I can’t remember it’s place). Between the steeply sloping sides of the three giants is a valley called the Western Cwm. All the snow that falls onto the flanks of the mountains eventually forms the glacier of the Western Cwm. This ice river moves down between the mountains until it spills over steeper terrain toward the Khumbu glacier below. Imagine taking a Snickers bar (which are in every teahouse in the Khumbu for some reason along with Pringles and Coke) and bending it in the middle. The resulting cracks in the candy are what are happening to this ice river as it slowly moves over the steeper terrain several hundred (I have heard the glacier is 700 feet thick here but I don’t know) below. The ice cracks and heaves in these massive crevasses and pressure ridges. I have found it difficult to describe the scales here. At one place on the way to Camp One I saw a crevasse that had a snow bridge across the top. It occurred to me that I could easily fly my aerobatics plane through this crevasse and under the snow bridge to the other side! On the flanks of Nuptse and a gap in the mountains to the north called the Lola (spelling?) which leads to Tibet are hanging glaciers which just as their name implies are ice rivers that are spilling of the mountains. Imagine taking the Civic Center or the Turner Field or even the Super Dome standing it on it’s side and jacking it 2,000 feet up the side of these sheer walls. Only these are about 20 times bigger. They are made up of layers of snow and ice and occasionally they let go with thunderous spectacular crashes that generate tremendous wind gust in Base. Base is actually positioned to avoid any danger from these massive avalanches, as is the path to each Camp. The scariest part of climbing through the icefall is actually the ladders. When the Swiss and British in 52 and 53 attempted the mountain they actually had to set an intermediate camp in the ice fall because of the circuitous route necessary to avoid the crevasses – some hundred of feet deep. Today we place aluminum ladders over the cracks in the ice. When the crevasse gets to wide for one ladder the Sherpas just lap the ladders and tie rope around the lapped sections. Sometimes these can be ten ladder sections. This year we have been fortunate and the widest is only three sections. It is still quite terrifying. We all wear crampons on our high altitude boots (a combination of plastic and insulation with no give). My crampons each have ten triangular sharp points for digging into the ice (or aerating the lawn). My front two spikes point out straight for digging into more vertical ice (and your pant legs if you are careless). I position them over the front rung, which allow my two back ones to rest over the next rung. These ladders are generally level so it is a real act of will power to concentrate on the rungs and not the chasm beneath. Imagine taking a ladder and laying it from the roof of one 20-story building to the next. There are two fixed lines, which you clip into on each side so the worst that can happen is a brief but very exciting dangle. No one has ever been hurt on a ladder to my knowledge but when you take that first step out facts don’t matter. I pulled into Camp One after six hours. Not a great time but not terrible either. I and two other members of my team were the first Westerners to inhabit Camp One this year. We sat in a small tent brewed tea and soup and ate dinner before dark. This is a very beautiful but desolate place. The five of us (there were two Sherpas as well) spent a normal wakeful first night at 20,000 feet. We woke to find that our Camp site was Highway One for Sherpa’s carrying loads to Camp Two. At the old Camp One there was a crevasse close by that served as the “loo” as my Australian teammates say. A suitable series of ice screws were put in place with a rope and when you needed to “number 2” you clipped into the rope hung it over the crevasse and did your business. The new site for Camp One (fortunately or not) doesn’t have a nearby crevasse so we dug a hole and lined it with plastic (we really try to practice no trace climbing). Unfortunately, we position our facility next to Highway One. I operate on the principal of “if I ignore you then you are not there.” But the Sherpas are such friendly people. Anyway after some discussion among our group we decided it might be best to move our facility to a more tranquil setting