Rest days were made to acclimate to the altitude. Those days were not easy since all of the climbers were antsy. But the sunsets were spectacular and the camaraderie superlative. It s not just the breathing that is heavy when you re oxygen deprived, she said. You have a whole-body heaviness.
Every step takes concentration.
Apparently Nalen s breathing was discernible from afar, as her exhales sounded like whistles. One reason for the caution-an American woman had fallen to her death the week before, when she slid off the mountain in the middle of the night. She also wore Evans wind pants and shell in her honor. On the descent from the summit, during a whiteout blizzard, the group had to cross the Polish Glacier roped together, wearing crampons and using ice axes. They picked their way through pinnacles of ice that seem to grow out of the earth upwards.