Peak by Roland Smith

was currently suffocating, seemed about as likely as me flying a Gamow bag to Jupiter. My only consolation was that Sun-jo and the film crew were having as much trouble as I was.
    The one person who wasn't affected was Zopa. He'd wait for us until we were about fifty yards behind him, then continue up the Rongbuk Glacier like a mountain goat breaking trail.
    By late afternoon there was still no sign of Josh and the others. If we didn't find them soon, we'd be searching in the dark, but even worse, clouds were starting to come in.
    Zopa let us catch up to him just as the sun started slipping behind the mountain.
    "Maybe they're spending the night at Camp Two or the intermediate camp," JR suggested between gasps.
    There are two camps on the way up to ABC: an intermediate camp, and Camp Two, which lies three-quarters of the way up to ABC. The intermediate camp was nowhere in sight, which meant we weren't nearly as far up the mountain as it felt.
    "And if they are not at the intermediate camp or Camp Two?" Zopa asked. (Meaning if Josh and Dr. Krieger had passed the camps, or hadn't reached them yet, they could freeze to death.)
    "Good point," JR conceded. "What should we do?"
    Zopa looked down the glacier, then squinted up at the darkening sky.
    "A storm is coming," he said. "You can get down to Base Camp in an hour and a half, maybe two hours. If you leave now you can beat it."
    JR gave him a skeptical look. We had been climbing for over four hours now.
    "Downhill," Zopa said by way of explanation. "The trail is broken. Don't wander off it."
    "What about you?" I asked.
    He pulled his headlamp out of his pack and strapped it around his parka hood, then started to slip his pack back on. "I know your father. He will not watch that man die. He will try to get him off the mountain."
    I think all of us wanted to go back down to Base Camp (I know I did), but none of us wanted to go down without Zopa, especially with bad weather moving in.
    We put on our headlamps and followed Zopa's light.
    Two hours later, in the dark, with the snow beginning to fall, we spotted two headlamps flickering a few hundred yards above us.
    Josh and Leah looked completely done in. I don't think they would have made it much farther on their own. And I don't know who was happier to see who. They were happy we were there to help get Francis down, and we were happy to find them because it meant we got to go down.
    "Did you bring Os?" Josh asked, kind of slurring his words.
    Zopa pulled an oxygen tank and mask out of his pack. Josh cranked up the regulator and handed it to Leah, who took in several deep lungfuls. Josh was next. When he finished he offered it to us, but we all bravely shook our heads. We hadn't been up as long or as high as he and Leah, and the only reason they took hits was because they were exhausted. Climbers usually didn't start sucking Os until they got to Camp Five.
    Zopa pointed to the bag. "How is he?"
    "Alive ... at least the last time we looked. But he has HAPE bad."
    JR pointed his headlamp at the transparent window on the top of the bag, but it was too fogged up to see inside.
    "You still with us, Francis?" Josh shouted.
    I thought I heard a muffled reply, but it was hard to tell in the howling wind.
    "He's writing a message," Leah said.
    We stared as a feeble, backward sey appeared in the condensation on the window.
    Josh managed to laugh, then looked at Leah. "Should we let him out?"
    She shook her head.
    "You're the doctor." He squatted and got closer to the bag. "Help has arrived, Francis! We'll have you down to Base Camp soon!"
    Soon turned out to be four more hours. The glacier was steep and icy. We had to place ice screws and lower the bag on ropes a few feet at a time so it didn't take off like a toboggan.
    We stumbled into Base Camp long after midnight. The camp was usually lit up like a Christmas tree with blue, red, and green tent lights, but this late, most of the climbers were asleep. We hauled the Gamow into the Aid tent