Polar explorer Eric Larsen reached the summit of Everest this week for his Save the Poles mission. He’s been blogging throughout his climb, and has two killer posts on the details: Everest Summit Story Part 1 and Part 2. As is inevitable during any Everest summit bid, the final moments brought a strong desire to turn around:

About the same time we were to reach the South Summit two things happened. One, we ran out of rope. Two, the clouds started rolling in – both did not bode well in my mind. To solve the rope situation, we cut some of the fixed rope from below us and relayed it forward. The impending whiteout, well, that just added to my stress.

At the South Summit, I seriously considered turning around. I could see the summit, but it was getting late – after 11 and the weather was turning really sour. We still needed to get down and now that we had removed much of the fixed rope through several dangerous sections of the route a hasty retreat would be slow and arduous. I asked Chhering what he opinion of the devolving situation.

‘No problem,’ he said.

Unfortunately, Chhering had slighty frost nipped his hand and therefore Nima (Kalla) led through the Hillary Step. I didn’t think we would get up. Slowly, he kicked steps and cleared snow and eventually made it to the top. We followed slowly and carefully reaching the summit about 200 meters later.

His success marks the end to his Save the Poles journey, with the goal of being the first American, and among only 15 people in history, to stand on all three poles (Everest being the third). Having stood on the South Pole on January 2, he also becomes the first person to ever stand on all three poles within 365 days.