On returning to Camp 4 to the summit, I felt too tired to carry on down to Camp 3, which lay at a lower, safer altitude. So Namgel, my Sherpa, switched my oxygen cylinder and I spent a very uncomfortable night at Camp 4. The next morning, I still felt exhausted but I knew that we had to carry on. At 6 AM, we departed for Camp 3. The climb down to Base Camp would require every last ounce of strength. Kenton Cool guided us extremely efficiently down to Camp 3 and then to the bottom of the Lhotse Face. On the way down, the blistering sun caused me to grow increasingly thirsty. In fact, by the time we reached Camp 3, I was more thirsty than I can remember ever being before. On my request, Kenton radioed the kitchen staff at Camp 2 to carry up some cold drinks and meet us at the bottom of the Lhotse Face. Knowing that relief was on the way provided some mental energy and within a few hours we reached the bottom of the Lhotse Face. However, the drinks hadn’t arrived, so I asked Kenton if I could go on to find the drink-carrying Sherpa while he waited for some other expedition members who were lagging behind. Off I went looking for my drinks. Halfway between the Face and Camp 2, I came across a Sherpa who didn’t look familiar but who didn’t wear climbing gear. He did carry a backpack, so I asked him “Do you have the drinks?” to which he replied in the affirmative. 2 liters later, I left the Sherpa, thanking him profusely. I then came across another Sherpa, this one looking a lot more familiar, also without climbing gear but with a backpack. I drank his load, too, feeling rather fraudulent about the encounter with the first Sherpa, who, it dawned on me, did not belong to our expedition. Filled up with almost a gallon of cool liquid, I decided to bypass Camp 2 and head directly to Base Camp via Camp 1. Kenton and the others would catch me up, I thought. Halfway through the icefall, I noticed that much of the familiar landscape had changed. Football-sized blocks of ice had imploded, while others had crashed on top of each other, leaving a field of rubble and devastation. Ladders had snapped in half, climbing lines were ripped, ice screws missing. I then came across a 7-foot-wide crevasse over which I would have to jump in order to proceed on. No lines covered this crevasse and I began to worry that I might fall into the 80-foot-deep crevasse on trying to jump over it. Ten minutes later, I gained enough confidence to make an attempt, despite being worn out and tired. I cleared the crevasse but on landing lost my balance and began to lean backwards. Only by chance did my glove get caught in an ice hook on the side of a large chunk of ice directly next to the crevasse, so that i did not fall in. Later, Kenton would radio to Base Camp explaining that the Sherpa, many of whom are a lot shorter than us and carry heavier loads, would not be able to cross this particular feature of the ice fall. What I did not appreciate until I reached Base Camp a few hours later, was that by the time I traversed the crevasse, a full-scale search-and-rescue operation was underway with several expeditions looking for me.