Blasting winds, heavy snow and grinding ice destroyed three of his tents on the world's eighth-highest mountain.

At times he endured temperatures 40 below zero Fahrenheit and colder, in a realm so devoid of oxygen those who go there call it the Death Zone. He assisted in two rescues and the elements contributed to at least one fatality.

But he refused to give up his goal of reaching the top. Persistence paid off.

On Day 57 of his expedition in the Nepalese Himalaya, Nicholas Rice of Hermosa Beach finally stood on the 8156-meter summit of Manaslu, a Sanskrit name that translates roughly to "Mountain of the Spirit."

"I summited at 11:30 a.m. on the 19th of May!" Rice said on May 21st in an e-mail from his base camp. "All the best!"

The 24-year-old climber's elation comes at the end of an ordeal that required multiple forays up the mountain and weeks of waiting. He had stocked high camps without porters and without supplemental oxygen, and he'd descended numerous times when the weather turned bad.

"Definitely recovered in base camp now, but it isn't looking good for a weather window," Rice said in an e-mail on May 12, 2009. "We've had 2 meters of snow here in base camp already with more to come and no sufficient weather window in sight before the monsoon brings the close of the season. Many expeditions are heading home . . . "

The next day Rice said he and other climbers who remained might still have a chance.

"It looks like there may be a weather window for the summit centering around the 18th of May. It will be difficult thanks to the deep snow and low number of climbers left in base camp, but Mario Panzeri and I will try starting up on the 16th. Wish us luck!!!!"

According to dispatches on his Web site, Rice and Panzeri woke at 4 a.m. Saturday to begin their summit push from base camp. In camps I and II Rice found both his tents buried and crushed. Winds were approaching 100 mph and he was worried about frostbite.

On Monday at Camp III, an estimated 7000 meters above sea level, Rice found his third tent demolished and pushed on to Camp IV.

"I passed the corpse close to Camp IV and then spotted a number of destroyed tents on the crystal ice," Rice said. "I headed down to the rocky ridge and spotted Mario with the tent already set up . . .

"We settled in, made water, and quickly got to sleep, knowing that in a few hours, we would be heading up for the summit, two months of work boiling down to the next 24 hours."