Sorry for the really long posting.

Sunday May 11. Camp 3 7120m.
It is 2pm and I am sitting in my tent at camp 3. It is quite amazing just to be here. This is such a famous camp. I feel that if I can make it here without too much trouble I should be able to make it to camp 4. From there it is a whole new ballgame.
I am sharing a TNF VE 25 with Angus and Al B. Ryan and Alan A are in another tent not more than 2 feet from us. Our two doors face one another for easy communication, to pass food and water back and forth, and because this is all the space we have on our tiny ledge.
We woke at 5am this morning and packed our bags. Breakfast was porridge and eggs at 5:30am. It is difficult to eat much at this hour, but it is necessary for the day. I managed to choke down one egg and a hot chocolate.
We were on the trail by 6:10am and were making pretty good time. Faster than our walk the previous day. I felt stronger and less tired. We stopped after one hour for a water break. I could see up onto the Lhotse face and counted at least 100 climbers. With climbers before and after us I estimate that around 250 people made their way to camp 3 today. Many of these are Sherpa who will not spend the night and many are climbers who will just touch camp, rest a while, and descend. Probably somewhere around 100 people will actually spend the night here.
It took us two hours to reach the base of the face. We immediately clipped our jumars onto the fixed rope and would not unclip until four hours later when we reached our tents.
The route starts out steep and stays that way. The first section had some snow cover so it was not too difficult to gain good footing. Shortly thereafter the route got much steeper and turned to pure hard glacier ice. Footing became trickier and more strenuous. In some sections it was so steep we had to front point (this is when only the two front points of your crampons are biting into the ice and your entire body weight is suspended on these small pieces of metal).
About every 30m or so (longer if the terrain was less steep) we would come to an anchor point. These anchors are made of ice screws, snow stakes, or V-threads (two holes placed in the ice with ice screws to create a V which a piece of rope is looped through). Some of these anchors look a little scary, but most are quite solid. Most are made of multiple anchor points, but some are just a single anchor point. Back home I always make sure I have at least two anchors and usually three. While it is not uncommon to use a single anchor point in an alpine setting, the scary part about the single anchor here is that there may be 30 people hanging off it.
At the anchor point you have to clip your safety line above the anchor before you take your jumar off and move it above the anchor. If you do not do it in this order and lose your balance while you are unclipped you will take the express train to the bottom of the Lhotse face. Many climbers have died in this exact manner. I am very careful in these transitions.
There are about 20 of these transitions on the way to our tent site. Some people choose to pass at these anchors, but mostly people just stay in line as passing is too dangerous. There is an up and a down line and some people chose to pass using the down line, but there were usually people coming down so this caused problems. For the most part there was little passing. This is also because passing consumes a ton of energy.
The face is for the most part unrelenting, but there are a couple of semi flat sections that can be used as a rest stop. Mostly once you start you don't stop.
When we first got on the face we were in the shade and it was quite cold. This is the coldest I have been on this expedition so far. At one point my hands were very cold and had gone numb. At 8:45am the sun hit the face and it warmed up considerably. We had to make sure we had our sunglasses on (if not we would go snow blind in a very short time) and put on a generous coating of sun block. Even with the sun block we all got some level of sun burn. The sun also started to warm my hands and I experienced great pain as they thawed out.
The sun was hot, but we had some cloud cover for most of the day so it was not unbearable.
It was quite strenuous, but I did not find it too bad as we were moving fairly slow. This was good because any increase in speed would leave me breathless in mere seconds. I found that I needed to set a pace for myself in order to be comfortable. I settled on one step for four breaths. I would take a step and then breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe, and then take another step. This may sound very slow, but was actually a pretty good pace. I kept to the front of the line (there were several lines spread out on the route) and nobody passed me.
Every now and then I would come to the bottom of a short steep section. Looking up at it I would mutter a curse and know it was going to be a killer. The four breath pace would go out the window and I would do whatever I needed to do. This usually involved lots of stops and heavy breathing. At the top of the section I would need to deep breathe for a minute or so to get my breathing under control. Often I would cough and cough and cough from the exertion. At the top of one steep section I came across a climber laying spread eagle in the snow. I asked if he was ok and he gasped yes. I knew he only needed recovery time so I moved on.
I got to the first section of tents after five hours of moving from camp 2 (three hours from the bottom of the face). There are three tiers of tents this year. These take advantage of three relatively flat areas on the face. The first set of tents did not hold our camp and I muttered another profanity to myself (this occurred frequently today), dug in and kept going. After another agonizing steep section I could see our tents directly below a huge ice wall.
The final 25m are always the toughest for me. I can see my destination, but know that I am still 15 minutes away.
As I arrived in camp I sat down to rest and it started to snow. Our tent platform is about 6 feet wide and we need to be clipped into a rope whenever we are outside our tent. One slip and it is all over. Surviving a fall from here would be impossible. We will stay in our tents for 99% of our time at camp 3. The only reason to get out of the tent would be to get snow for melting into water or if you were unfortunate enough to have to go #2. Peeing is done in our pee bottles and dumped out the back of the tent. Modesty is thrown out.
We have had a bunch to drink since we got here and had a small snack which I proceeded to throw up. My throat is a little sensitive and the hot pepper salami did not go over too well.
I am doing well now, drinking lots and resting. Dinner was noodle soup with cheese and salami. It was pretty spicy, but not too bad. It is 5:45pm and still sunny. It is pretty warm in the tent, but I know it will drop drastically once the sun goes. With the three of us in the tent it should not get too cold however.
I was just outside for about 20 minutes. It is an amazing view from here. I can see down the Cwm to camp 2 (it looks very far away), I can see the West shoulder of Everest where it dips down to the Geneva Spur and the South Cool (but I can't actually see the Spur or the Col from our camp), I can see the scary ridge that leads to the summit of Nuptse, I can see the pyramid summit of Pumori (it looks small from here), and I can see Cho Oyu (6th highest mountin in the world 8210m) in the distance. The clouds in the valley below us made for a spectacular sun set, but once the sun set it got cold and I went back into the tent.
We have just made our plan for the morning; we will rise at 8am, have breakfast and depart at 9am. The sun should hit our tent around 8am so we will be able to pack and descend in the heat of the sun. I just hope it is not too hot.
It is 6:45pm now and it is bed time. The sun has just dipped behind the horizon. We will spend around 13 hours in bed, but will not sleep that long. If I am lucky I will sleep well until midnight and then it will be off and on until morning.
Wish me sweet dreams at camp 3,
Scott.

Monday May 12. Camp 3 - Base Camp.
Today was a very exciting day. Very exciting is not something one usually looks for on Mount Everest. Our trip motto is "No Drama". I'll tell you more about it in a moment. First let me sum up last evening.
We had a pretty good night. We went to bed early (not much else to do and we were tired from the day). I slept well considering the altitude and the comfort rating of the glacier. Our tent platform was quite flat compared to others I have spoken with. I did not get cold and found that breathing was no problem. Some people will sleep on a low flow (.5 litre/minute) of oxygen at camp 3, but I did not and did not feel it was necessary. Maybe on the summit push I will just to give me a boost. I have not decided yet.
I fell asleep around 9pm and slept off and on for most of the night. Even though the VE25 is a good sized 3-person tent it fills up fast with three guys and our gear. A strong wind picked up during the night and shook our tent violently. This made it difficult to sleep with the noise (I should have put in my ear plugs), but the biggest issue was from blowing snow. In the tent there are several vents to help keep the air fresh and to allow condensation from breathing to escape. Two of these vents have mesh and two are open under the outer fly. We had all four vents open. The strong wind picked up spindrift snow and blew it under our tent fly and right into the tent through the open vents. None of us realized this until we opened our eyes in the morning. It was not too bad, but my sleeping bag had a good covering of snow on it which proceeded to melt.
Fortunately we were heading down so I could dry my bag out. A wet down sleeping bag is not much good at camp 4. Lesson learned. I will be more careful next time.
Now, here is the exciting part: Our planned departure time was 9am. The wind was still howling as we were getting ready to head down hill. It did not seem too bad in the tent as we packed our bags, but as soon as I stepped outside it was a different story. Our tent was still in the shade so it was quite cold out. This was compounded by the wind and the blowing snow. By the time I had my crampons on my fingers were numb. I stood there for a moment waiting for the others and then said that I was going down hill about 100m to get to the sun and warm up. I clipped onto the rope and started to make my way towards the sun. Once I got there it was no better. If anything the wind was even stronger which made it feel colder. Angus came down to meet me and we decided to move to a flat spot to wait for the rest of the team. We stood at an anchor point looking down at the two ropes (one up and one down). Both had climbers coming up on them. Standing there freezing and waiting for a free rope was not pleasant, but I held my tongue. Eventually the rest of the team arrived at our waiting spot. I looked at the team and said I was going down.
I hooked my figure-8 onto the line and started to rappel. The wind was blowing so strong at times that it would blow me across the face. Once I got the the next anchor point I looked up and did not see anyone from my team, but I did see two other climbers starting down the rope I was on. I had to keep going to get out of their way. I also did not want to stop for long as my hands were getting colder and colder. The rest of my body was fine, but I was losing dexterity in my hands and I was scared of making a mistake.
Some of the sections were less steep and I did what we call a Sherpa rappel. You keep your harness clipped to the rope, but instead of using a rappel device you just wrap the rope around your arm and use this friction to control your descent. For the steeper sections I used my figure-8.
Looking back up the mountain was quite amazing. It was a classic Mount Everest scene. The sun was reflecting off the ice creating a beautiful view, climbers were scattered everywhere hunkered down against the wind, and there was swirling snow everywhere. When the snow hit my face it stung with the force. It was a beautiful if not somewhat scary scene. This is what mountaineering is all about.
I took the odd photo, stopped every now and then to wait for my group, but mostly I just kept going.
I would stop when I got to a flatter section and wait for the rest of my team, but I never saw them. Sitting at an anchor point was not a pleasant experience on this day so I did not linger too long. The feeling was coming back to my hands and I did not want to lose the feeling in them again.
When you get to an anchor point you need to clip from the high side to the low side in order to keep going. At no time do you ever want to be completely unclipped from the rope. A fall would be fatal. Therefore, I had one leash attached to my harness with two carabineers. When I got to an anchor point I would first find a stable stance, I would leave my upper carabineer attached, connect my lower carabineer below the anchor and then unclip the upper carabineer. If I was using my figure-8 to rappel the next section, I would connect it to the rope before I unclipped my upper carabineer. I was then ready to keep going.
With numb hands this process became much more difficult and the chance of error became greater. I would not say that I was scared at any time, but all my senses were on high alert.
Regardless of what rope I was on, as I was going down I would invariably meet up with other climbers coming up. There was some confusion as to which was the up rope and which was the down rope. Most often these were pleasant experiences as both myself and the other climbers were looking for human contact, and a reason to stop for a moment. The upward bound climber would see me coming towards them and I would wave to them and tell them I would pass them once I got to them. Usually they just stared at me and nodded their heads while gasping for breath. Once I reached them we would exchange a few words as I clipped around them the same way I would an anchor. As I was ready to go, we would say good bye and pat each other on the back. This human contact seemed important, especially on a day such as this.
I continued down the mountain like this from one anchor to the next. Passing one upbound climber and the next. It was not really that hard, it was not really that cold, but it was fairly intense.
At times I would stop to catch my breath, snap a photo, look up hill, admire the view and keep going. As I got closer to the bottom the snow started to accumulate on the lower angle sections. In places I was rappelling through snow half way up my calf.
I made it to the bottom in one hour. It had taken me four hours to go up the day before.
Once down, I made my way across the glacier looking for a place out of the wind to rest and wait for the rest of the team. All in all it was quite an exciting descent. It had all the classic elements of a real mountaineering experience; steep ice with huge potential for danger, very strong winds, and blowing snow. Quite the experience.
As I was walking across the glacier I came across Lama Babu and Lhakpa waiting for us. They had hot juice which was quite excellent. I had not eaten or drank anything since leaving the tents and had expired quite a bit of energy. The plan was to take a break along the way, but the conditions did not permit this.
From this spot on the glacier we wathed for Ryan, Angus, Alan and Al. They had some crampon challenges and got behind some slower climbers so they were quite far behind me. I felt bad that I was not with my team, but at the time I had no way of knowing how far behind me they were and I was not in a position to comfortably wait for them on the face.
I could see them high on the face making their way down, but all I could do was watch. As I was waiting, the wind was raging even stronger around me. Other climbers were making their way up to the face to make their shot at camp 3. Some of these climbers were agonizingly slow. Our team is not the fastest on the mountain, but we are far from the slowest.
I observed many of these climbers make it to the face and start up, only to turn around and come back down. The conditions were too harsh for them. Going up is much harder than going down.
My team made it down to where I was, we had a drink and then we started out for camp 2. The snow had stopped, but the wind remained high.
When we got back to camp 2 the excitement continued. We heard that several people had gotten frostbite on their way down from camp 3. All of our team was fine, and it did not really seem cold enough to get frostbite. The only way this could happen, in my opinion, was that people either had inadequate gloves, or took their gloves off for some reason. It could also be that these reports were exaggerated.
The other news we heard back at camp 2 was that everyone was abandoning ship. The weather forecast was calling for 3-4 more days of heavy snow and people were afraid if they did not get back to base camp now, they may not be able to do so for several days. The issue being that if the trail down was covered with snow it would be very diddicult to find the way down. This was exacerbated by the fact that it had started snowing again, the clouds were low and we only had 200-500 feet of visibility. The wind was also acting to bury the trail very quickly. An additional fear was that if the seracs in the ice fall got loaded with heavy snow it could force them to topple over without warning.
With this information we too decided to get the heck out of Dodge while we still could.
We had a quick lunch, packed our bags and were off. Visibility was extremely poor and we had to follow the partially filled in trail towards camp 2. We had wanted to stay a night at camp 2 to recover, but we had to dig deep for all our reserves to make it down. At no point were we in danger of losing the trail, but the conditions were far from perfect.
As we got closer to camp 1 we started to come across a lot of drift snow. This made the walk extra tiring. Ryan was out front doing a great job of finding the trail and breaking through the snow.
Once we got to the ice fall it was not so bad as the route is fixed with rope from top to bottom. The snow slowed down and the sun periodically poked through the clouds. We were making good time, but I was getting very tired. At one point the sun came out and the temperature went way up. This acted to sap almost all my strength. I trudged on, slowly making my way down the ice fall.
The worst part of the ice fall I feel, from a physical point of view, is the bottom 30 minutes. This is where the ropes stop, but you continue to walk along the glacier towards camp.
For the vast majority of the downward journey through the ice fall it is all down hill. There are a few uphill sections, but they are few, short and far between. The bottom part of the ice fall is like rolling waves. Up and down, up and down. Even if you are acclimatized, up hills are still tough. Especially when you are running on the last of your energy reserves. I was severely dragging my butt near the bottom.
After 4.5 hours we made it back to base camp. It was great to be here, and our trip to camp 3 had been amazing.

Tuesday May 13. Base Camp.
Today when I woke up I could not believe how warm and comfortable base camp is. I actually got too hot in my tent early in the morning. I slept very solid last night and feel about 70% recovered. I do think that I am still dehydrated, but I am drinking lots to take care of this.
I received two packages this morning which was amazing. The first was from my family with cards and photos. It was great to get cards from Susan, Amy and Colin.
I also received a package from students and their teacher from QECVI in Kingston Ontario. The letters, t-shirts, flag, coffee, and yearbook were great. I am glad to know that my climb can help make school more interesting for some students. I was not the best student in high school, but have learned how important that time was for me. I have also learned that with desire and determination you can accomplish great things.
There were many questions in the letters I received. I will try answering them one by one.
So now it is game time. Everything we have done so far has been in preparation for this moment. We are acclimatized, healthy and ready to go for the summit. In a few days time we will make our bid. I will keep you posted.
Hugs to Susan, Amy, and Colin.
Scott SS.

Messages:

Amy and Colin, thanks for the great cards. I loved the pictures you drew and what you wrote. I miss you both very much.

Paula, Robin and the beach girls, glad you are finding the reading interesting. My postings should be more frequent now that the restrictions are gone. I can tell you stories (so many that I can not write here) and show photos when I get home.

M.C., Thanks for the note. We are all doing well. We have had no altitude sickness in the group and no other illnesses to speak of either. The views from camp 3 are spectacular. Many people say they hate camp 3, but I am loving it.

Karen, Phil, Nathan, and Maggie, it is so nice now that the restrictions have been lifted. We have now been to C3 and are in good shape for our summit attempt.