May 3, boots and crampons

One of the side effects of diamox is that you cannot taste the fizz of carbonated drinks, diamox is taken to avoid altitude sickness, I wish I had some ginger ale to test that theory, and a mirror to see how my beard is doing. They say my eyebrows have grown outlandish, I keep them to remind me of Jay. If I had boots and crampons, I could go up, instead I must return down the slab and across the boulders to advanced base camp to retrieve them, hoping perhaps to journey up to camp two later in the day to one of the (rumored) unoccupied tents. But by afternoon it is snowing again, the slabs are treacherous, I would have died, except that I also retrieved my black diamond expedition mittens, which saved my hands frozen in their gloves and precariously continue up the slab to the tent. The tedium of a climbing expedition is enormous, hours of slow and labored walking, often demanding keen attention; you are alone and one slip is all it takes, like Ismael at the mast head contemplating the expanse of the ocean, musing on the verities of life, but one slip and like Icarus, fallen into the sea, unobserved by the young maid doing the dishes by the window.

in the tent

ridge to camp 2

the boulder field