Today is another rest day in Plaza de Mulas to acclimatize and prepare for the final assault to the summit.  This assault is comprised of 3 camps, summit day and then one more day back to Plaza de Mulas.  I pack my gear into 2 bags, my pack to go up the mountain and my duffel to stay here.  I say goodbye to Cynthia and she heads down.  

 

At breakfast, Vicki tells us (near tears) that she is abandoning the climb.  Her knee has swelled up to the size of a grapefruit.  Jack will continue up and she will wait at Plaza de Mulas for him.

 

Around lunchtime it is hot, inside the dining tent it is sweltering and I am dying.  Then the clouds roll in again dropping the temperature drastically to below freezing.  It starts to snow.  I go to use the satellite phones one last time before I go up the mountain, but the clouds prevent the solar powered phones from being used.  It is cold and getting colder.  We get more snow all afternoon and into the evening.  Dinner is the best meal I’ve had in days, new soup and baked chicken and roasted vegetables.  After dinner the guides instruct us on the assault days, what to expect, to be on time and answer several questions.  The weather forecast for the next 4 days is snow, snow, snow and snow/wind.  It is getting really cold in the dining tent after dinner and my legs are cold.  I down my tea and go to the cook tent to warm up.  I spend 5 or 10 minutes there, I should have spent an hour.  

 

It is colder than last night, so below zero.  I get to the tent at the same time as Frank.  Inside the tent it doesn’t seem too bad and we prep for bed.  After getting in my bag and bundling up it actually seems like it has gotten much colder in the tent in the last few minutes.  I inhale very cold air.  I’m not sure if I got any sleep between 10 and midnight, but one thing I am sure of is that I didn’t get any sleep between midnight and 9am breakfast.  I had a fever.  Sometimes my head was hot and my body was having cold sweats.  Other times I was all cold or all hot.  At one point my head (which was covered) felt like I had eaten ice cream too fast while my body was sweating hot.  At 2am Frank asks me if I’m ok and I tell him no.  I describe the situation and he asks what I am going to do.  I tell him it’s simple, if I sleep then I go up; if I don’t sleep then I go down.  It never occurs to me that I have some Advil that I can take to help me sleep, now that my bag has arrived.  I don’t sleep a wink.