"It is truly a spectacular area. Picture yourself walking into a boxed canyon miles long with mountains rising up on all sides and snow underfoot."
- Byron Smith, 1998 diaries

All the supplies are taken up ahead of time by Sherpas hired by the expedition. The camp is stocked almost as well as Basecamp itself so that climbers will have access to everything they need to exist above the icefall: tents, foam mattresses and sleeping bags, outer clothing, food, stoves, kitchen items, oxygen and rope.

This spot is more like an actual camp than any of the other camps other than Basecamp. From here Sherpas will carry the extra stash of tents, oxygen and rope to establish the stop-over camps at Camp III and Camp IV.

The sun is more intense here than at Basecamp with the three towering mountains creating a solar-oven effect in the Western Cwm. The sun's ultraviolet rays are also more dangerous because more of them make it through the thin atmosphere. At lower altitudes the atmosphere filters out much of the damaging UV rays before they reach the ground, but in the thin air of the Western Cwm climbers are exposed to more of the sun's power. Even a short amount of time in the sun at Camp II can give a climber a nasty burn. They have to stay covered up and smear sunscreen on exposed skin.

"Dave and I left Camp I at 1 PM and headed up towards the Western Cwm and Camp II, I had all my outer wear off and lots of sun cream on. In this section you climb up into a huge valley which climbs up at a gentler grade ..."
- Byron Smith, 1998 diaries

"I'd been uncomfortably cold since leaving camp, having underdressed in anticipation of the solar-oven effect that had occurred every other morning when the sun hit the Western Cwm. But on this morning the temperature was held in check by a biting wind that gusted down from the upper mountain, creating a windchill that dipped to perhaps forty below zero."
- Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air

The cook tent was gone with just poles around, the big tent which was tied down with rope and had a sturdy double layer with thick poles is still at camp but has a few broken poles in it...
Wally Berg's camp seems to be intact as he had 3 Sherpas up there at the time and they knocked down the tents to keep them from blowing away. The Iranian camp is gone as well as Henry Todd's.
The winds were pounding all the tents and it was all the Sherpas could do to anchor themselves down and keep everything from blowing away."
- Byron Smith, 1998 diaries

Questions Kids Ask
While you are on the mountain, where do you go to the bathroom?
Answer: Up on the mountain at Camp II the climbers have an outhouse system similar to Basecamp where the waste goes into a garbage bag and gets carried back down the mountain. More ...