Once the light show was over and we had exhausted every permutation of group photo in front of the Summit sign, we turned around and headed back to base camp. Almost immediately the headache and nausea returned 10 fold. I wanted to puke, but I had nothing in my stomach, and I couldn't even consider eating anything. At a quick clip we bounced down the now melted scree field, trying to offer encouragement to the intrepid climbers still on their way up. In a stumbling slide down the mountain side Mari came very close to running a man down, coming up. She apologized for almost taking him out, and he replied in a sad feeble voice "it would have been a blessing". On a normal day I would have been jetting down that scree, but on that day, I was in a bad way. I had a horrible pounding headache, I was dehydrated, I had hardly slept in 20hrs and I hadn't eaten in 8 hrs. In a zombie like stumble I was one of the first people to make it back to base camp, the thought of my sleeping bag was the only thing keeping me moving. I chugged some juice, took of my shoes, crawled into my sleeping bag, tried to eat some chocolate, and fell into a wonderful deep sleep. I was woken 2 hrs later for lunch, to pack up camp, and begin the 4hr trek to the next campsite. My headache persisted well into that 4hr trek, but once we reached the campsite I was headache free and in full spirits!
At the base of the mountain we were once again below the clouds, and the summit was just a beautiful dream.
Posted via email from Lonely Dinosaur
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