Base Camp winds
12th May Today the winds are wild. I woke with the tent being blown from what seemed like every angle. The key with the tents when the wind is this strong is to keep them closed up. This limits the chance of them being damaged. During breakfast we sustained our first damage. The food store tent turned inside out. The gust that caused it came from no where. Once a replacement had been erected and the supplies transfered we set about strengthening the deffences on the rest of the tents. unforetuantely the comms tent housing the radio equipment was next to go. The radio arial was damaged but the tent was ok and could be put back up. I really felt today was a low point for me. We were inprisoned in the tents due to the wind and it was pretty much definate that the 17th 18th summit attempt was off. What the forecast has being saying with increasing confidence is the winds will drop from the 23rd through to the 26th. This sounds more promising and is not to far away.

Trek up to the North Face camps
13th May It was decided last night that a few of us were going to go for a final walk today as this window on the 23rd was looking more and more likely. We were going to head up the Rongbuk glacier. This leads to the base camps used by teams attempting routes on the north face or the west ridge. The last British team here was an army team which attempted a route up the west ridge then traversed into the Norton couloir. They got to the bottom of the couloir and realised they were stood on a slope that was ready to avalanche. They had planned the trip for 3 years and turned round at this point. There are a number of routes on the north face mainly put up by the Russians and Polish. We set off with the intention of doing a couple of hours but it turned into a bit of an epic. The terrain was a nightmare and rather than turn back we carried on until we had a good view of the North face. By the time we decided to turn round we had been going for 3hrs. After a quick bight to eat and a photo oppurtunity we turned back and began the trek back. We got back after a nightmare walk back. We were all pretty tired and ready for food. The view of Everest and the vallleys laeding off the the glacier were spectacular and justified the effort. That`s it now, just rest until we go for it