After the excitement of the previous day and half we were now going to add some more by continuing our climb up the mountain to camp three. The Lhotse face is enormous, and far steeper than any picture can show. Many sections are in excess of 60 degree inclines, some are near vertical and consist of shiny, rock solid ice bulges. I will have to admit that the about 6 hr climb up to camp three was most likely one of the hardest things I have ever done.
Camp three is a rather precarious place, and most of the tents there had been damaged or rendered unusable by the storm of the previous night. There is little space here to walk around, and tragic accidents have happened here in the past. We nevertheless were able to settle in for the afternoon, spent time drinking tea, and even got down some food. Unfortunately it started to snow again in the afternoon, and the night was a bit unruly but fine otherwise.
The view up here is just astonishing. The Geneva Spur appears right next to us, and the South Col is clearly in sight. The camp is located over 24,000 ft, and this is as high we will be climbing in preparation for the summit attempt. In the morning we descended back down to camp two, mostly using a mixture of rappelling techniques. I spent the day resting there, and early on May 11 we returned back down to camp one, and the ice fall back down to base camp.
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