Today there was a tragedy on the mountain. A climber from another team died. David [Breashears] and Ed [Viesturs] and Robert Shauer went up and retrieved his body and brought it back down to Camp II.

A fellow at Camp II, or Camp III rather, left his tent to go to the bathroom. The cardinal rule at Camp III is you don't leave your tent without crampons and preferably you're tied in to a rope. This fellow neither had crampons nor was he tied into a rope, went out to go to the bathroom, slipped into a crevasse, fell about 20 meters.

The details are a little bit sketchy at this point, but it appears that he came back from his accident, laid down in his tent for a while, and then decided to return, go down to Camp II on his own. Somewhere below Camp III is when he died.

Probably what happened is [he] suffered internal injuries that either he wasn't aware of or wasn't saying anything about. Decided he would head back down to Camp II on his own and died along the way.

Seemed no one else wanted to retrieve his body. Ed and Robert and David, being a little more high-minded than that, weren't willing to just leave him laying out there.

I'd rather not say [who died] at this time because we'd rather let that expedition make the announcement on their own, if you understand what I'm saying. I can tell you it wasn't a member of Scott Fischer's expedition.

Actually they did head from Camp III to Camp II [Wednesday]. And were prepared to make a summit assault on the 9th. They got to Camp III and they decided the winds were a little too stiff, not so much for climbing but for filmmaking.

And decided to retreat to Camp II. Once they get down there they determined that they had made the right decision and they put off their next attempt until the 12th.

In the meantime, a number of other expeditions have now gone up on the mountain to make their attempts. So the mountain is quite a crowded place at this point and they have decided that they are just going to sit at Camp II and let a couple of other expeditions go on ahead of them and get out of the way before they make their next attempt.

So I expect their next attempt will probably not be until the 13th, Although nobody has actually made the determination at this point.

They are all healthy, very strong and very determined. But they are also very concerned for their own safety and want to make sure they don't get involved in any of the situations that might be as tragic as the one that happened today. It sobers you up, that's for sure.

The winds were high at Camp III above them. When they go up on their attempt they're using a monopod and David was concerned the winds would buffet the camera to such a degree that it would be hard to get a steady shot. It wasn't that it was bad climbing weather.

They probably would have succeeded in reaching the summit. But he was concerned he wouldn't get the quality of shot that he wants. Basically he's just got a monopod and use his two legs, so to speak, as the other two legs of the monopod.

It's not so much weather conditions at this point. The storm that they were in has passed through. They are resting up from their ordeal from this afternoon because they did retrieve the body in blizzard conditions. So they are a little tired from that and are resting up from that and are basically waiting for other expeditions to go through and get out of their way.

Another note, the Yugoslavian team made their summit attempt earlier today and were turned back at Hillary's Step, which is just shy of the summit. The exact reason why they were turned back I'm not sure, but they were unsuccessful. Because of the condition of their expedition, being low on food, and not being particularly strong climbers, they probably won't make another attempt.

(Goran Kropp) was turned back about 30 meters below the south summit, primarily because he was starting to experience the initial effects of frostbite on the tips of his fingers and his toes. He made the decision that if he continued he would be jeopardizing his own well-being and so he decided to run back and returned to camp a few days ago.

He's resting up and eating and drinking as much as he can to restore his strength and plans to make another attempt in a few days.

-- Brad Ohlund