We were in Ecuador climbing a mountain called Cayambe, Ecuador's third highest peak at 18,982. My climbing partners and I awoke at 12:00am to gear up for our climb from our base camp. The wind was howling, and in the bitter cold I was asking myself the question "Why am I doing this?"

We began hiking through the dark night up the glacier. At about 2:00am, I was ready to give up and turn back, but my ever-faithful friends were there to spur me on, reminding me of how happy I would be when we finally reached the summit.

At approximately 9:30am, the sun was out, and I was feeling much better. My rope team and I were ten minutes from the summit and doing well. We approached a crevasse, and my rope leader took a flying leap and landed safely on the other side.

I think the altitude was really affecting me at this point. I was not thinking clearly, and as a result, I jumped to a snow spot that I thought was the other side of the crevasse. But to my surprise, I had landed in the middle. The snow and ice on either side of me gave way, and I came crashing down with it into the crevasse.

Lucky for me, my rope partners were watching. They hit the snow as soon as they saw me fall, and I was left hanging in the middle of a bottomless crevasse struggling desperately to get my ice axe into the sheer ice wall.

My rope leader made sure the rope was secure and then called down to me. He said, "Can you climb out?"

To which I replied, "No!"

He said, "If I give you another ice axe, can you climb out?"

To which I replied, "No, and if you drop me I am going to die!!"

Eventually the other rope team that was with our group came down from the summit, and one of them gave me a pulley to hook into my harness. Unfortunately my karabiner was twisted around and I was not sure which way to turn the lock to open it. The rope lead was also not sure, so I just turned it as hard as I could to the right and it opened up. Then I hooked the pulley on, and they lifted me out.

We summited ten minutes later. The day was beautiful, and we could see all of the surrounding mountains. When we came back down from the mountain to base camp, we were met with another surprise.

The wind had been blowing so bad that all of our tents were blown down - except one. That was my friend's Sierra Designs Omega.

I decided any tent that could stand up to those extreme conditions was just the tent I needed - especially if I was going to be doing crazy things like climbing 18,000ft peaks in the Ecuadorian Andes. I now own one of these tents and it has stood up to the worst conditions. Thank you Sierra Designs.

Click here to see how Sierra Designs was used by Abby Stroven and other people in the know.

Greg Borman and Abby

Abby on the summit

Camp