Fortunately, a helicopter had been arranged to come and evacuate Mikaela's body today. Our team spit into two, half who would help in transporting the body to the HLS, and the other half who would make a start on fixing the route. Luckily, the stretcher had come up yesterday from BP BC, which would make this task much easier. We had breakfast at 5.30am, and then depending on our task for the day, got our kit together. I carried the stretcher up to the base of the route, where our detail started to dig the body out of the ice, although the refilled ice had refrozen over night, it didn't take too long to exhume the body and then strap it to the stretcher. Luckily, it wasn't a traditional carried stretcher, but one made of plastic which was designed to be pulled along the ice like a sledge. With four of us controlling it, it made it much easier to take down tothe HLS, which was situated about half a mile below our camp on the moraine. Once we'd arrived there, we found that the landing site had already been marked out, and a flag erected to show wind direction. We had to wait for several hours for the helo's to arrive (they always travel in pairs - both because of the altitude and the fact it is a military controlled area), but the turn around time once they did arrive was very quick. Another flight came in an hour later to pick up Frederic, and despite only knowing him for a couple of days, the events meant that the farewell was quite emotional. With the departing deep throb of the helos, we bid farewell to this terrible episode - finished, but certainly not to be forgotten.

We returned to our camp for lunch, to find with great surprise, that our cook, Didar, had made us a huge deep fill pizza! When I was on Everest back in 2005, one of our favourite treats in BC or ABC was Surrendra's tuna and sweetcorn pizza. However, Didar's version blew the Nepali version completely out of the water - it was amazing! Especially since it was preceded by soup and spicy spaghetti and veg, and followed by pineapple chunks, it set us up for a very lazy afternoon.

Meanwhile, the climbing team had been doing very well on the route, with Fabrizio fixing the line nearly all the way to Camp 1. They returned in dribs and drabs throughout the afternoon - most of them pretty shattered unsurprisingly - at least one person, who shall remain nameless fell asleep during dinner! During all of today's goings-on, we also sadly said farewell to our two trekkers, for whom it was time to depart. They had very much integrated themselves into the team, and they will be sorely missed. Having said that, the extra room around the dinning room table is much appreciated! Safe journey back to civilization and eventually home to both of you. To say that I'm not slightly jealous of the fact that in about 4 days they'll be able to have a hot shower and eat 'normal' food, would be a lie - although I'm sure that I'm not the only one who might feel the same way...!