It's so cold, but however cold I think it is, it's probably much, much colder.

At this point, the wind and snow have whipped my cheeks so hard they barely feel anything.

Small blessing, I guess. My feet aren't so lucky. Every step I take drives my snowshoe a foot deep into the snow.

We're up at 7,700 meters by now. Everett's summit is at

8,800. Tomorrow we'll enter what's popularly called the death zone, the area above 8,000 meters,

where there isn't enough air to sustain human life. That's why we pack the oxygen. After that,

we'll crest the summit and come back down from

the Chinese route. I'm shaken out of my reverie by a noise. I've been trudging forward through

the lashing wind and snow, pulled by the rope of Davies ahead of me and Samuel behind. But through

the shrill screaming of the blizzard, I can just hear Davies yell my name. I freeze and my eyes

adjust. Ahead of Davies, the snow sags just a little bit. It signals the presence of a crevasse,

filled with snow. If any of us had stepped on it, the snow would have collapsed and we'd be sitting

in a vertical trench 40 feet deep with no way out.

I let out a breath that it frozen inside my chest. We set up the ladder to span the

crevice and slowly move across it. We all make it to the other side when a spare ice

pick that was hanging off Samuel's pack slips off. It crashes onto the fluffy white snow

and is instantly swallowed up. We're left

staring at the arm-sized patch of emptiness where it landed less than a second ago. This time,

Davies is the one who let out a whistle. We keep moving. The sun is going to set in just a little

bit, and we need to get to a safe spot to hunker down for the night trying to

climb in the night is suicide on Everest we've just about found a nice rocky patch to set up

our tents on when the steel tip of my boot clunks on something i freeze again then force my eyes open

...