'I literally walked over four dead bodies'

TIGARD, Ore. - Chris Cameron's video diary after he reached the summit of Mount Everest last week recorded a man cold and exhausted.

"Unreal. It's just unreal," the Astoria man says with the wind whipping at his back and equipment as a storm approaches.

It was a journey his family in Oregon was watching closely.

"We knew he had summitted," said Chris' brother, Bob. “"But we were worried about them getting back down."

Bob Cameron soon learned his brother made it off the mountain safely. But the same could not be said about four others who died on the mountain last weekend. They were not part of Chris Cameron's team but it still affected him.

"I had to walk over four dead bodies. I literally walked over four dead bodies," he said by phone Tuesday from Thailand. "When I first went up there, went by the first dead body, I had this feeling in my gut, like I was going to puke, but then I had to pull myself out of it."

Cameron called Mount Everest a paradox: A place of tragedy but also a place of beauty and the site of a huge accomplishment.

"When we came over up to the south summit, the sun was rising, and it was just like, unreal," he said in his video diary. "I'm exhausted. I can't believe I made it."

Cameron will likely be home Friday. He said he was tired but otherwise OK. He's also thankful he's coming back home uninjured.