The climbing Sherpa, Nawang, has been brought down to Pheriche and he is doing very, very poorly. He's not recovering (from his extreme bout of edema Monday). It's going to be tough for him to make it, no question about it.

Lobsang, Scott's climbing sidar (leader), has gone down too. Nawang is Lobsang's uncle, and he has gone down to be with his uncle.

The thing about cerebral and pulmonary edema is that you can go up and down five or ten times, and then suddenly you go up and whamo, you're hit. It is really a mysterious affliction. People usually, after going down a bit, spring back right away. Not in two or three days, but right away. He's not recovering at all.

It's really tough weather, snowing and windy right now. Our camp sidar, camp doctor, and Tim are all down there. They are really working to keep this guy going. Jim Leach, a Seattle doctor, is down there. He has climbed Everest and has treated many, many people for altitude sickness. Nawang basically has the best help possible.

This has really shaken everyone to the core. I mean, someone is close to death and that really cuts close. Someone, a Sherpa, has been hit by this and so everyone is shaken by it all. Otherwise, for the most part, everyone is still strong and has a really solid attitude.

The weather is very, very bad. It's snowing very bad. They can't get a helicopter past Tengboche to airlift him out. The weather has been really bad for three or four days, lots of snow.

When this storm first hit, Scott and Pete were staying up at Camp II and the windstorm was so bad it literally blew apart their tent. They had to reestablish their tent.

Since then Tim Madsen has walked down from Camp II, with oxygen, because he has some fluid in his lungs. It looks like he's having troubles with acclimatization. He helped with the rescue and is now heading down to Pheriche, which is about five hours down if you're really moving it.

Leena, Klev, Dale, Sandy, Martin, Charlotte, and the rest of the group have spent four nights, most of them at Camp II.

The only one still hoping not to use oxygen is Leena. It's a complete unknown. It's really not up to her, in the end, whether she uses oxygen. She'll have to follow the rules and the decision made by Scott. But she hopes to not use it.

They've used a lot more oxygen than they thought. Scott bought a lot more than they would need, and everyone expected to have extra. But because of the rescue and Tim, it will be just enough.

Neal today went up the icefall, but it is snowing so hard that he got up to the top and turned around. He's tough, he's one of the guides. But he was turned back through the icefall by this storm.

Tomorrow, Anatoli is going to fix the ropes to the South Col.

-- Jane Bromet