Summit day! Various alarms roused everyone at 2:00, and we woke to a cool, crisp morning, with just the slightest hint of a breeze. By 3:00 we were all chowing down on hot drinks and oatmeal in preparation for the climb ahead. Alex was sleeping in since she had decided to abort the summit day due to foot problems, so the rest of us packed into the hut for breakfast. I was a little surprised to find that I didn't have much of an appetite (I always have an appetite, especially climbing!), but I forced myself to eat anyway, knowing that I'd need the energy. By 4:00 we were geared up and headed off to the toe of the Ayaloco glacier, picking our way through the rocks in a jumble of headlamp beams.

And for me, this was where the trouble started. Almost immediately after leaving camp I started feeling lightheaded and dizzy. I shook it off with a few deep breaths and kept moving, but the dizziness came back again. I was having trouble navigating through the rocks, and fell down several times. Stubbornly, I tried to explain it away as just bad foot placement on unstable rock, and kept pressing ahead. About 30 minutes into the hike, I fell over, hard, and finally admitted to myself that something was not right. I called to Eric that I didn't feel right and to hold up for a couple minutes. A client reporting that they're not feeling good swings a good guide into action, and Eric was immediately next to me, asking for a run-down of my symptoms, having me sit down, drink, breathe deep and relax for a few minutes. I chugged some water and did a few pressure-breaths and started to feel better. When Eric asked me if I wanted to try to go on, I asked him to give me two minutes and I'd make the call.

As I started an internal discussion with myself to decide what to do, I casually hawked and spat on the rocks next to me, and I caught a flash of red in my headlamp. Blood! Experimentally, I spat again – more blood, a little foamy this time. Suddenly, the iron taste of blood was extremely obvious in my throat, and I knew instantly the day was over for me. Eric's assessment was pretty much the same. His spot-diagnosis was a mild case of edema, which is a result of climbing too high too quickly, and the only real cure was to descend. I was given some Diamox to help me breathe, and they also gave me an oral steroid. Eric directed Enrique to get me back to camp, get my stuff packed up and head back down to the trailhead, and the others would make the summit attempt and join us later in the day. At this point came the most humorous part of the whole trip (one of those 'we-can-laugh-now' sorts of moments). As Eric was giving instructions, Enrique asked if he should give me either a steroid or adrenaline injection (which would have been overkill since I wasn't in THAT bad a shape). Eric replied with, "no, only if it looks like he's dead or not moving or something like that". To which I could only say "hey, you know, I'm sitting right here, thanks very much." Well, maybe you had to be there.

So after wishing the rest of the group well, Enrique and I very slowly picked our way back to camp. He told me to just rest for a while, and he went about packing up my gear and as much of the camp gear as he could. All this commotion roused Alex, and she decided to head back down with us rather than wait for the others to return.

The hike out from high camp was slow and deliberate, and I was concentrating on every step. After a couple more hours we had descended back through 14,000', and I was rapidly beginning to feel better. By the time we neared the trailhead, right about 10:00, I felt absolutely fine. We had a brief message from the 4 summiteers via radio that they had made the top in excellent weather with no significant problems, and were on the way back down. I was glad to hear they'd made it. Unfortunately, I had several hours of waiting time during which my brain went into overdrive replaying the events of the morning, and what it meant. Was I really not cut out for high-altitude climbing? I felt fine the two days before...what the heck happened? What would I do now? I figured that if anything, I would have had the least problems acclimating since I was comfortable climbing 14ers back home.

Finally, late in the afternoon, the rest of the team tromped back to the trailhead after a long summit day and a long hike out. Despite the obvious exhaustion of the group, they were happy to have made the top and relieved to see that I was OK. In talking to Eric, his thought was that I was just taking longer to acclimate since I'm such a big guy. At 240 pounds, I had at least 60 pounds on anyone else in the group, so maybe my system was taking longer to get used to it. We decided that I'd stick with the group at the very least through the next couple of days, to the base camp or Orizaba, and just keep evaluating how I was feeling. Sounded like a good plan to me.

So we packed everyone up and headed back down towards Amecameca where we actually had fairly nice hotel rooms waiting for us. Oh, to have a shower after 4 days of grit, dirt and sweat! Hard to say which was more rejuvenating, the showers, the full sit-down meal, or the comfy beds. Maybe it was all of 'em!

On to day 6...