We leave tomorrow morning. Not for Kathmandu, but for Camp 2, followed by a rest day, after which we intend to climb to Camp 3. The next day, we hope to climb up to Camp 4 and on reaching this last remnant of civilization -there are tents with oxygen bottles and sleeping bags there-, we will rest for three or four hours before leaving for the summit at approximately 9 PM local time (11:45 AM in Pittsburgh; yes, Nepal is off by 15 minutes). With luck and mental toughness on our side, we should reach the summit of Mt. Everest 10-11 hours later and seven to eight hours after that should be back in Camp 4. I can say with great certainty that I have never before done any physical exercise for more than a few hours, so being on the move for up to 19, perhaps 20 hours will be quite a novelty. I know that I can sleep for 18 hours, I am quite good at that, but climbing for such a long period of time requires considerably more effort and discipline. My knee has gotten a lot better, thanks to a small team of Navy SEAL medical specialists out on Coronado Island, California, who got heir heads together to come up with a quick-fix for my not overly dramatic injury. It still hurts to bend it 90 degrees, but I have decided to make use of my other, good, knee when necessary. Of course, it is due to the excellent training and even better camaraderie of the SEALs that I am even able to participate in this adventure in the first place. No fewer than eight of their number volunteered to train me on their base and over the course of two months turned me from a “puny little watchmaker” -their words, not mine- into a pretty strong novice-mountaineer (mountaineering training was part of the package the SEALs put together for me). I consider all of this a great honor, especially because my friends volunteered their time and weren’t ordered to help me out. Which is one reason why I feel that failure is not an option - I don’t want to let those guys down. Nor do I want to disappoint the sponsors who, despite the terrible recession, came forward to support the expedition. These and other thoughts raced through my mind as I was packing my rucksack today, when suddenly Ran gave me a flurry of instructions in the unlikely event that he won’t return from the mountain. The thought of losing one of your best friend is never a happy one. Then, for the first time in a long time, probably since facing the terrifying cargo net on the SEAL obstacle course, thoughts of my own mortality came into my mind. I decided to do my best to ignore those negative thoughts and am thus trying to maintain a positive outlook. I am hopeful of reaching the summit on Thursday morning (local time) and returning to Base Camp in one piece two days later, with our entire team. One decidedly happy thought will help to keep me going: returning to Pittsburgh and enjoying a meal with friends and family at downtown’s India Palace restaurant is a vision that will serve as the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

After sustaining a knee injury, I am following the advice of a Navy SEAL medical team and am resting and applying plenty of ice to the swollen section. With fewer than 36 hours to go before I have to make a decision whether I will go up the mountain or not, I am doing everything I can to get fit and strong again. This entails eating a ton of chocolate, beef jerkey, mango strips, and macadamia nuts, while drinking plenty of fluids in the form of vitamin-C enriched energy drinks and Ovomaltine. This will hopefully aid in my recovery and strengthen me for the journey that hopefully lies ahead. Kenton showed me how to use the oxygen cylinders and regulator, in case I become separated from the rest of the group and need to handle my own O2 supply. I am, of course, the slowest and least-able member of the expedition, so the chances of me struggling up the mountain some distance behind the others are quite good. At last, I am seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Soon, we will be feasting and relaxing in the Hyatt Regency in Kathmandu, and not long thereafter, I will be back in the good old USA. It’s been long enough and we are all excited about our helicopter flight down the valley, which will mean a savings of three to four days’ trek back to Lukla airport (the airport we flew into from Kathmandu).

After several consecutive days of almost non-stop snowfall, we finally had good weather today. With this happy development in mind, I decide that it’s the perfect time to go for a run on the boulder-strewn Khumbu glacier to the nearest settlement, an hour south of here. On the way down, I was picking up considerable speed despite the unwieldy trail when suddenly I slipped on a mud-covered rock and skidded in the direction of a van-sized boulder. Within a fraction of a second, my knee made full impact with the obstacle in question, bringing my rapid decent to an even more rapid halt. I couldn’t believe - I had survived, the 10-day-long trek in to base camp, a rock slide, an avalanche, and almost two consecutive weeks of the worst case of the stomach flu I can remember (resulting in even more rapid weight and strength loss); and now this! After limping back to Base Camp, I settled down in my tent and assessed the damage. Unfortunately, with our trusted and talented physician, Dr. Simon Piper, no longer part of the team, no expert medical advice was near. A large bruise had developed and movement of the knee in question had become increasingly difficult. To express anger at oneself for bringing about such a foolish event (I didn’t have to go on a power walk) is counterproductive; no crying over spilled milk! Yet I cannot help but feel decidedly defeated in light of this injury. To make matters worse, the weather reports show that we can have an attempt at the summit in two days’ time. That will hardly be adequate to heal my knee. I have decided to wait until the morning of our planned ascent, on Sunday, to decide if I will go up. At the moment, it’s questionable that I will be strong enough to safely make the ascent.

The crisp, clear air of the Himalaya is as deceptive in terms of its healthfulness, as the heights of its fabled mountain ranges. Visitors to Everest Base Camp commonly arrive coughing and gasping for air, while the Sherpa seem to exhibit no obvious respiratory ailments. The careful observer will note that the locals can often be seen wearing face masks and cloths of one variation or another, while most foreigners concentrate mainly on more or less uniform methods to cover their heads in order to avoid the sun. Of course, in this part of the world, one is a lot closer to our solar planet than anywhere else, at least on earth. It is, therefore, prudent to protect oneself again UV radiation by wearing baseball caps and other headwear, especially in combination with liberal and frequent applications of SPF-50 sun block. But I digress; back to the so-called Khumbu cough. Dust and other particles must be carefully kept at bay (by way of a face-covering cloth or other device) in order to avoid this painful affliction. But there is another element to live at Base Camp that few climbers and fewer locals, even, are aware of: the risks posed by an elevated concentration of ozone. In normal areas of the world, say Pittsburgh, it is considered hazardous when the ozone level rises above 0.85 parts per million (ppm). On a typical day, in a typical American city, ozone concentrations are between 0.15 and 0.51 ppm. Here, on many days, we live with ozone levels of 1.80 ppm. How can this be? The answer lies in the jet stream and its so-called streamers, or off-shoots of the main jet stream. The streamers quit literally suck ozone out of the atmosphere down into lower elevations. In normal locations, say at 2,500 feet elevation, the effects of these streamers cannot be noticed by the general public. But up here, at 18,000 to 28,000 feet, things are vastly different. The result is a nasty and prolonged, “dry” cough, which, in combination with a rather elevated heart rate (resting heart rates of climbers around here are not infrequently in the low 100’s), makes breathing at times difficult.

We are now literally stuck…in over a foot of snow. This morning, after breakfast, we had planned on going down the valley to stay in one of the lodges in order to get better sleep, better food, and to breathe thicker air. But the snow storm that has lasted for over 24 hours has us tent-bound and dozing, sleeping, and reading. The benefit to all this snow is that Base Camp and the surround mountains all look quite beautiful. But it doesn’t help our already well-developed sense of boredom to be sitting here for another few days. We are also running low on supplemental food - the kind I imported to sustain us in this environment. Kenton, despite growing up on Cadbury’s chocolate, has taken a liking to our Hershey’s supply, causing it do be diminished even more rapidly. I am down to my last four Mozartkugeln (German-made chocolates, of which I brought up over 100), and Ran has only six cans of Alaska-caught Sokeye salmon left, which he now refuses to share. Things could be worse, but for the tent-bound climbers, these are indeed trying times.

I climbed up another mountain to snap a picture that gives a clear view of our surroundings. Everest's summit can be seen surrounded by some clouds.

As the illustration shows, Base Camp can clearly be seen in the lower right-hand corner, next to the Khumbu Ice Fall, at the top of which lays Camp 1. Camp 2 is not visible. Camp 3 on the Lhotse Face is clearly visible, while some imagination is needed to determine the location of Camp 4, beneath the summit. The dangerous overhanging ice is also clearly marked.

With the expedition temporarily on hold, due to inclement weather, there is not much to report on since each day seems to run into the next without any apparent change to the routine here at Base Camp. It may therefore be opportune to write a bit about the equipment and services with which this expedition has been outfitted, courtesy of sponsors and patrons alike. First, this is, above all, an expedition in support of U.S. Navy SEALs and their families. Hence, the SEALs took great delight in outfitting us with some of their own equipment. Cargo boxes of all shapes and sizes -indestructible, dust- and waterproof- have been given to the expedition in an effort to safely transport our electronic gadgets (more on those later) into the high Himalaya. Incredibly bright but efficient combat flashlights that operate on regular AA instead of specialty batteries make it easy for us to navigate at night between our tents and the tiny tent used to cover an oil drum, into the opening of which we have to relieve ourselves (no toilets on Everest). These flashlights also have a strobe function, activated by the simple push of a button, which is designed to disorientate assailants at night. Ran and I experimented with this feature using an unsuspecting yak, but the beast was least impressed by the SEAL’s illumination device and kept on sleeping. One of the SEALs who helped train me, Joe, couldn’t bear to see me squinting in the California sun and generously gave me his sunglasses, which I have been using here every day. Next, we have a tremendous amount of communications equipment with us, including a satellite device; six laptops of various shapes and sizes (Acer became a generous sponsor when they learned that we required machines that were outfitted with so-called solid-state hard drives, the kind that don’t seize up at high altitude); a video editing machine (we are diligently documenting our work on the mountain using a digital video camera); a satellite phone (donated by a personal friend who wishes to remain anonymous); a generator modified especially to function at above 18,000 feet, courtesy of Honda America; as well as countless garments, provided by The North Face. On special occasion, we feast on such delicacies as Heinz baked beans and Heinz ketchup, Hershey’s milk chocolate bars, Reese’s Pieces candy, Snyder’s (of Hanover, PA) pretzel sticks, shelled walnuts, crispy bacon, and dried slices of mango. In order to spare the reader an upset stomach, I will forgo listing the types of food we eat on a more regular basis but only grudgingly so. Yaks and porters carried our 900+ pounds of gear up through the Khumbu Valley, to Base Camp, while Continental Air Lines flew Will to Delhi from Pittsburgh (via their nonstop service from Newark), and British Airways flew me (in business class!!) to London while Thai Airways whisked me off to Kathmandu via Bangkok. Ran flew from London using Qatar Airways, who kindly put him up in their business class upon learning of his royal heritage, and it was only poor Kenton for whom we had to actually purchase a ticket - in coach. Interestingly, we received financial sponsorship (to pay for various climbing, filming, and satellite communications permits) not only from companies such as Pittsburgh-based Black Knight Security and Virginia-based Fuisz Technologies, but also from individuals from all around the country. In all, the expedition would not be possible without the support of our sponsors and supporters, many of which have been omitted here for the sake of space.

Waiting for good weather to climb towards the summit, we are able to take a great many photographs of Ran, the expedition's most prominent member, sporting our sponsors' products. Here, Ran is showing off his Maui Jim sunglasses and a very warm jacket donated by The North Face.

When we all sat down to plan this expedition, we knew that one of the factors beyond our control but crucial to mission success is the weather. There are only four different models that scientists use to forecast the weather patters around the globe, using satellite images and other data, and there is an even smaller number of places that generate weather forecasts for this part of the world. Using all four models to generate different forecasts, the meteorologists aiding this expedition have generated a bleak forecast. High winds near the top of the mountain, snow fall, and a disadvantageous jet stream all combine to hinder this undertaking’s progress. We are, essentially, stuck. This revelation, made last night, not only poses a logistical problem, but also does nothing in the way of raising morale among the expedition members. After almost six weeks of being “on the ground” here, we are all ready to get the task done, pack our bags, and fly home. Any delay, however brief, grinds on the nerves of each and every one of us. We have already made tentative arrangements for a helicopter, a giant, Russian-made MI-17, to collect us a few hundreds meters below Base Camp, and whisk us off to Kathmandu in order to avoid further delays (the walk back to Lukla airport would take three or four days). And although I took one of the very comfortable pillows from the Hyatt Regency in Kathmandu, sleeping on a bed of ice and rock, even in a sleeping bag rated to -40 degrees Celsius, is not quite as relaxing as sleeping on a proper mattress. (I did insist on paying for the pillow…imagine the look on the face of the Hyatt’s front desk attendant when I showed up, in the middle of the night, pillow in hand, and said “This pillow is very comfortable. I’m taking it with me to Mt. Everest. Could you please add the cost to my bill?”) In short, we’re running out of patience. The weather forecasts are good for five days, so it will be at least until then that we will literally cool our heels, here at Everest Base Camp.

The SEAL trident blowing proudly on our Puja flagpole. (Ice fall seen in the background)

Base Camp lay under the bright light of a full moon tonight, after a day that was scheduled to be as routine as any other. On the agenda were the usual amount of sleep and food breaks, some reading, and some emailing. Yet by around 10 AM, things turned out decidedly different. A relatively small avalanche went off right above the route up the Khumbu ice fall. We stood in our camp, watching as the white mass came down over some very fast-moving climbers. No harm was done as most of the several tons of ice had pulverized by the time it hit the climbers. But only an hour later, another avalanche, this one the biggest of the season, blanketed the entire lower half of the large ice fall. The fallout from the great wave of ice and snow reached base camp only a minute later and it was obvious to everyone watching that those climbers who were in the lower half of the ice fall must have been in pretty bad shape. Even if you can hide from the oncoming debris by hiding behind a large iceberg or by jumping into a crevasse, the pulverized ice poses a great danger to the respiratory system as it causes water to form in the lungs. After the white cloud cleared and the ice and snow settled all over the ice fall, our Sherpa watched carefully, using binoculars, as rescue teams entered the ice fall to look for causalities. By lunchtime, we learned that one Sherpa was missing and another climber injured. This, we determined, was the worst news yet this season. By the end of the day, we learned that the missing Sherpa had very sadly died of his injuries. The accident played a role in the decision of our expedition’s medical doctor, Simon Piper, a seasoned and most helpful climber from England, to cancel his plans to reach the summit. This came as yet another surprise, as Simon is generally quite strong and, of course, very experienced. Simon departs Base Camp tomorrow morning. We will miss him greatly, especially his dry sense of humor, and proceed with even more caution, now that our only professional medical staff has quit the expedition.