May 2 the yellow tower in the hall of the mountain king

One allure of the mountain, like the ocean, or the big city, is the possibility of touching the infinite. The suburb can be terrifying because of its finitude, it's sense of too much planning, of human utopia. The ridge to the yellow tower was marked by a maze of fixed lines most of which were braided nylon, anchored by sketchy old pins. Which line would offer a safe anchor in case of a slip, maybe better to go line less and not test those dubious anchors, better to rely on your own feet than the contrivances, though well intentioned, of others. Climbing on rock, trusting those feet up the tower, thousands of feet of air below, is to finally touch the mountain. Camp two, 19,600 feet.
I am sitting in the tent at camp one holding my feet to keep them warm. It is snowing, i wonder if this is a good meditation pose. Today started out sunny--even warm.Mark and Nima and I climbed to camp two. This is where the serious rock climbing happens. The route has fixed lines all the way up, but i chose not to pull on them, instead i soloed the easier pitches and rigged up a trailing belay using a jumar for the harder climbing on the yellow tower, and it was hard especially wearing gloves at 19,000 feet. I cannot forget to breathe.

 It was a beautiful day of climbing, it took 6 hours to get up and back to camp 1. mark is done with the mountain and went down with Nima. he was tired of being cold. the worst part is night which is very long and even if you are slightly warm in your four layers of clothing and down jacket inside your bag, the cold icy frost is always an inch away, and it takes so long for morning and then even longer for the sun to hit the tent. I want to sleep on my own couch next to a warm fireplace. I plan to join Mark in a few days whether I get this done or not. The trek back to Lukla is at lightening speed so we wanted to leave a day or two early to look around the villages a bit. But now i remain alone like a monk in the snow listening to the subtle roaring of the mountain.

the fixed lines

the ice forest

the tent

the rappel