I wanted to lead from behind that night. I reasoned that if anybody wasn't fit for going on, for whatever reason, then I should be the one to tell them. After all, I was the one who'd been to the top three times and the one who had turned back just short of it three other times. I knew what lay ahead and I knew how much energy a climber needed to make it through an entire day.

Ben was back there pulling sweep initially, but I took off my mask and explained that I wanted him in front, keeping Danuru at the pace our team needed. I didn't actually say much. We'd been working together for long enough that I had a lot of confidence in Ben's abilities by this day. I didn't need to tell him to take breaks when he reached safe places with the team. I didn't need to tell him to keep those breaks short and useful. I didn't need to tell him to keep in touch with me on the radio should we get split up. And I didn't need to explain to him that I was taking the rear so as to guide better and not because I was feeling old and in the way.

In fact, my intention was to use Ben or Lisa for any turn-around from up high and I was thinking that I would go to the top with the group, regardless of whether I was at the front or the back of the column.

My first task at the back was to figure out why Alison was lagging behind. My assumption was that she had reached her limits and that I should have her go back to high camp before too long. Alison was a less experienced climber than some of the others and we had worked continually through the trip to coach her on more efficient methods of moving. She would beat herself up physically before perhaps getting into a decent rhythm and conserving energy to finish the day.

Walking just ahead of her in the dark and looking back to check on her, I knew she needed to have her technique dialed from the start, or else. I stopped to face her and we both squinted in the glare of clashing headlights. While I checked that her oxygen was flowing at the proper rate, she said that she was feeling too hot, so I reached out in the cold night and pulled off her hat and found another perfectly good hat underneath it. I pulled that one off. There was one more, a really fine, well-designed hat. I pulled it off to reveal simply the hood that is part of the oxygen rig. Plenty for the conditions we were in with uphill walking and a full down suit to keep warm. I shoved all the hats in a pocket of the pack and we were off. Immediately she was doing just fine.

Within 15 or 20 minutes we had rejoined the back of the team and the whole mob started up the ropes of the Triangular Face. That hill is steep and straightforward and we had it in excellent condition. There was some new snow blown into the tracks from the climbers of two days back (it was now getting to be the 18th of May, being past midnight), but Jake and Karma Rita were breaking trail, making it a little easier on Danuru, Ben and the gang. Climbing up this 35-degree face with its bands of rock calling for an awkward step every now and then was technically easy with fixed rope to rely on. It was physically demanding due to about a hundred reasons, chief among them being that it goes on forever with little relief and it doesn't top out until 27,500 feet.

The Balcony is a wonderful place to get to. It's a place with amazing views where the Triangular Face gives way to the Southeast Ridge proper. One can see the great sweep of the Kangshung Face dropping away steeply on the other side of the ridge, one can see Kangchenjunga, the world's third highest mountain, off in the distance, and Makalu, the fifth, and Lhotse, the fourth, up close. And one can see the last 1500 hundred feet of Everest right smack within one's reach. The view from the Balcony can be extremely impressive.

But we couldn't see any of that stuff since we were right on schedule and it was 2am and dark as could be. What I saw when I pulled into the Balcony was a better sight anyway. I saw a team of climbers busily knocking back water and choking down food and changing oxygen bottles and taking care of business. Ben and I just barely touched base and he (with Jake still out ahead) set off with the first of the team again. I worked hard for a few minutes helping people with this and that bulky piece of gear or that frozen device or that burned out headlight. I got together with Panuru to make sure he was checking on some of the slower Sherpas. I wasn't convinced they should all continue. Each had been carrying two oxygen bottles to this point in order to leave one at the Balcony for safety on the descent. Two can be a big load (30 pounds) and I thought some of the guys were wasted from it.

Panuru spoke with them and assured me that they'd be fine now with lighter packs. And then everybody was walking out toward the steep slopes below the South Summit and I was alone at the Balcony, changing my regulator to a new bottle. And sure enough one of the rubber seals in the rig didn't like the cold and the new bottle was leaking. So I did it all again and it still leaked. One more time. No luck and with each try my hands were getting colder and the team I was supposed to be leading was getting a little farther away.

Such mechanical glitches are common and easily dealt with if one is in a warm room. I dug around in my pack for the spare regulator, and then after crossing my cold fingers, I tried it on to find that it worked perfectly. So I would get to have oxygen again, which warmed my heart.. literally. But in all of this process, my legs had been at an uncomfortable angle and my feet had fallen asleep, painfully so. I jumped up and down on the Balcony and swung my legs around and swung my arms to drive blood into my cold fingers and I laughed at myself out there alone on Everest. I felt ridiculous in my little predicament and wondered if anybody on my team even realized that I was back doing my odd Balcony dance. The climb was on autopilot, cruise control. I reminded myself that there were plenty of experienced hands at the helm and that they didn't need me micromanaging. Even so, I had no interest in being left behind. I got my act back together, threw on my pack and chased my climb toward the South Summit.

They were easy to catch at the base of the big, steep snow and rock slopes. I was back in the parade and able to see as the first light was bathing everything in a soft glow. All of the great mountains were just where they were supposed to be, but as I could see more and more, I kept looking at less and less. I was focused on the bank of clouds out to the west: a high and solid bank, at least as high as Everest. I'd look every few minutes in order to see if that cloud bank was moving and if it was, to see which way it might be moving. But all of this was not easily apparent, and the rest of the sky was absolutely huge and clear and beautiful.

The route up to the South Summit is quite steep, maybe 50 degrees, and there are rock bands that require full dependence on the thin and rapidly fraying fixed ropes. Our gang of climbers was coping with it just fine, but it is time consuming to be upward bound on such terrain with 16 climbers. It isn't like all can pull on the same rope at the same time and believe that the anchors (pitons driven partway into crumbly rock) will hold.

We were doing the best we could and so I tried not to get antsy and nervous over the delays and I tried to limit myself to one look over at that cloudbank per minute. I was right with Alison and was pleased to see that she was climbing smoothly and efficiently. Two of the Sherpas were behind us when we began to crest the worst of the steep bit. We reached what was almost a flat space, about two or three feet of flat snow up against a rock wall, but with awesome drop-away views on three sides.

That was the spot where nature inconveniently called on Alison, and we helped her get her pack off so she could attend to business. The Sherpas asked if they could go on to rejoin the main group, working up the last hundred feet to the South Summit and I gave my okay. So far, we were doing fine. We got Alison's pack back on her and began the last steep bit, but now she was climbing terribly.

I looked at my watch. It was still before 6am and that was good. I looked at the cloudbank and it was nearer and that was bad. I looked at Ben, up ahead and getting close to the South Summit and that was both good and bad. I wanted our team up there, but I wanted us up there together and now Alison and I were getting behind...and things were getting worse. She was having great difficulty now with this last steep part and I was working my tail off to keep her moving and safely clipped in. Just 40 feet higher, I could see a flat, which was the start of the easy ramps leading to the South Summit. I wanted to get Alison on that flat so that we could figure out what was going wrong. I assumed that she had gotten cold during the bathroom break and that her energy stores were down. I wanted to get the pack off in that safe place, get food and water into her and see if we couldn't pull it all together again and climb on. I turned her oxygen up to five liters per minute. Two or three is a normal climbing flow-rate, but more is better when you have to get something done and we had to get to that flat spot. Our system has a valve to open the tank and then just above it on the regulator, a flow-rate control which it is traditional to have somebody else adjust since one can neither see nor reach one's own control without taking off the pack.

The increased flow seemed to have no effect on Alison who was now complaining of exhaustion and dizziness. She couldn't make it up to the flat and so we took her pack off right there on the slope and I set about getting her some food and water. She was clutching the oxygen mask to her face and gasping for air. I did my furtive glances at the clouds and the team now actually on the South Summit and I started to feel a little too alone at 28,650 feet above sea level. I got on the radio and let Ben and Eric down at Base Camp know that we were having problems.

I dug out an Almond Joy and to keep her hands warm and in their gloves, I unwrapped the candy bar and stuck it in her mouth for her. She gamely tried chewing the tasty morsel, but it seemed to stay inconveniently right there in the front of her mouth. Inconvenient since I also wanted her to drink water, talk to me and breathe oxygen. After a minute or two, I removed the Almond Joy so we could get on with other solutions. I explained over the radio that Alison was not responding as well as I had hoped to food and water. Later news reports that seemed to circle the globe with speed directly proportional to their inaccuracy had me guiding a client at the South Summit of Everest who had become "unresponsive."

Unresponsive climbers so high on Everest stay that way until gravity intervenes, sometimes years later. I definitely did not have an unresponsive climber. I had one who, without explanation, was feeling poorly and who, unbeknownst to me, did not like coconut. There is a difference.

Even so, I had real problems on my hands. It wasn't terribly cold anymore, just moderately cold. The sun was up, I was getting separated from my team and Alison was probably going to have to descend the mountain and miss out on the summit. But first I had to solve the riddle and get her strong again. She was getting worried, obviously, and had actually said a time or two, "I don't think I can go on" which for Alison is pretty darn serious. She isn't good at quitting things.

About then it seemed like a lot started happening all at once. I asked Ben to send one of the Sherpas back to help me. I reminded him to be careful setting off the South Summit for the true summit, cautioning him that it would still take the big group two full hours to get along the ridge and up the Hillary Step to the top. "Be sure that everyone is good to go and keep an eye to your back." Ben was also watching the weather, we had been talking about it now and openly wondering if it would hold.

It dawned on me that I personally wasn't going to get to the top. I would need to stay with Alison and safeguard her descent. It dawned on me that I was going to have to depend completely on Ben's judgment if the team was going to proceed. I could no longer see them as they were now on the other side of the South Summit from me. It dawned on me that the weather was now showing the first signs of what it had in store for us. I saw streamers of cloud form up below us instantly and race through the South Col. I saw a cap form on both Lhotse and Makalu in a few seconds time. And I reported all of this to Ben as I tried to figure out Alison's trouble.

By then we were both on our knees on the snow slope and she was leaning on her pack and holding the mask ever closer to her face. Just then, Lisa came on the radio to say that something was wrong with her vision and that she was turning back. Vision troubles up that high can be spooky. They can be a sign of something awful, brain injury, impending blindness, all sorts of awful. And it came at a very inopportune time since I now had to contemplate the idea that Ben was going on as the sole guide with three clients to the most challenging part of the entire route. I asked him again just how strong everybody was and I left it in his hands. I needed to concentrate on Alison.

She looked at me and asked for Decadron. That is when I accused her of going Hollywood on me. Call me insensitive, but I still got something of a laugh out of her even as she threatened to pass out. It has been my experience that those truly in need of Dexamethasone, Decadron, Dex, whatever you want to call it, can't seem to ask for it by name. High Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE) can be tough for its victim to understand, much like getting hit in the head with a tire iron can be difficult to comprehend. Dex can buy valuable time when HACE strikes and a person's brain swells inside their skull, but I didn't think Alison had cerebral edema. The trouble was, I didn't know what she did have. She looked at me again and now said that she didn't think she'd be able to get down! I told her quite firmly then that she was going to get down and I wasn't lying. I knew I could get her down. I was positive of it, since the snow slope we were on was nothing BUT down and Gore-Tex is famous for its sliding characteristics.

I just didn't know what her health was going to be like when we got down or whether there would be any feathers left in her down suit by then. It could be a rough trip if she couldn't walk. By then one of the Sherpas had come back to us, Lisa and another of the Sherpas were almost back to us and Ben had decided to turn back with Kim, Lynn and Jody.

They had been halfway across the ridge to the Hillary Step when Ben recognized that his climbers were getting tired and close to their limits. None of this would have been a problem that a little rest and food and water wouldn't have solved, but with our sure conviction now that the weather was going to go bad he had to make the difficult call to end the summit bid.

Jake and Karma Rita were then above the Hillary Step and Jake asked me if he could go on for the top. Jake is an extremely capable mountain guide when he isn't taking pictures and Alison was still mysteriously deteriorating and weakening. I needed Jake because it seemed like things were going to get worse before they got better. I called on him to come down and he did.

This was his third Everest expedition. On the two previous trips, he had turned at 28,000 feet. This time he was at 28,850 feet and there isn't much more mountain than that, just 200 more feet. It wasn't really fair, but I didn't really care. My problems were getting acute.

I'd gone ahead and given Alison Decadron after seeking the advice of Lee Meyers, our trusty doc down in Base Camp. I was ready to try anything and I was no longer looking for laughs in the process. I pulled her O² bottle from her pack and checked the gauge, still near 2000psi, which was just fine. I'd turned her flow-rate up to six liters per minute and that is just where that particular dial still resided, so that was fine. I put my hand on the valve that opens and closes the bottle and I turned and to my astonishment found that the bottle had been shut.

She'd been clutching that mask to her face, effectively sealing herself off from the oxygen in the atmosphere and she hadn't realized that nothing was flowing through her mask. It must have gotten jostled shut during that last potty stop. Within seconds of me opening the valve, she was wide awake and telling me that she felt better. Little wonder, as it would be like coming up from the bottom of the swimming pool after half an hour.

I was a bit shocked right then, to say the least. Immediately happy to have Alison healthy again and the riddle solved though ready to bite my ice axe in half with frustration that: a.) The bottle had been off and that she and I had not known it; and, b.) That I had made a series of decisions based on that which had led to 16 climbers turning around just short of Everest's summit.

I got on the radio to tell Jake, who had come down the Hillary Step, to consider going back up. He did. I gave Ben the option to rethink his decision in light of Alison's miraculous recovery and to his credit, Ben did not. He had turned because the team was weakening in the face of threatening weather at extreme altitude and none of that situation had changed. Ben is a smart guy and standing there below the South Summit, I was pretty damn impressed. I'll admit though that I was still tempted to bite through my axe.

I was looking around and the cloud caps had gone away from Lhotse and Makalu... sure, the big bank out to the west had moved in closer, but perhaps it was going to be an okay day. I envied Jake and Karma Rita then, two strong climbers could take full advantage of such an opportunity and race a storm. Fourteen climbers in a guided effort simply could not. We started down.

We reached the Balcony at eight in the morning, just as Jake reached the summit. Looking around and wondering where the storm had gone, I felt like apologizing to my team as we basked in the sunshine and listened to Jake on the radio, whooping it up. I thought a speech was in order and so I explained the decision-making process that had led Ben and Lisa and I to call off the climb. I wasn't sure anybody was listening, but I also wasn't sure if everybody understood why they didn't get to summit Everest after months of trying. I didn't want misunderstandings.

As I finished preaching, I looked up to see clouds forming and jetting across the summit ridge. Jake had seen them too and he and Karma Rita were already sprinting down the mountain. We did the same and within 15 minutes we found ourselves enveloped in clouds and snow, fighting an ever-stronger wind as we descended the Triangular Face. It was a whiteout that held us in all the way back to high camp and then throughout the day, but all my climbers proved equal to the storm. They kept it together. They clipped efficiently and safely past the anchors. The Sherpas cheerfully resisted the urge to just boogie down and leave us out in the snow. Lisa worked well with her vision trouble (which turned out to be just a temporary condition caused by freezing wind on her cornea). Ben and I kept the group together and within sight of one another. Jake and Karma Rita caught up to us as we entered our wind-whipped high camp and 16 people came out of an Everest summit bid okay.

But it was statistically unimpressive, as Liz Hawley had pointed out. Not nearly as noteworthy as 16 people either going to the top or dying or both. And back at the Hotel Tibet I could tell that Liz Hawley didn't really buy my whiteout story, but it did happen. The storm would have clobbered us on the summit had we continued. I do like Liz, but man-oh-man, is she tough to impress.

[The tough journey wasn't over for Hahn and the Women's Expedition, read about their harrowing descent through the Khumbu Icefall.]

— Dave Hahn, MountainZone.com Columnist