After collapsing in our tents after summit day on Sunday, we awoke this morning to more high drifts of snow that fell overnight. The guides let us sleep in until 9am as reward for our big day yesterday ;). It was an exciting morning as we are able to descend and breathe in some richer air after days at 20,000 feet or higher. We broke camp after a short breakfast and put back on our crampons. We descended a long, "unrelenting" slope of the east face of the mountain, dropping almost 6,000 feet to Plaza de Mulas base camp (pictured above) on the "Normal Route", ending the day at 14,000 feet. Mulas provided some creature comforts we had not seen for many days. We has pizzas and even a beer or two within a mess tent. We felt as though we has returned to a small city.
In order to make a quick getaway the following morning, we pushed the tables back in two of the mess tents and slept on the floor. The air was thick with oxygen and we all slept better than we had in many days.
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