Location: Everest Base Camp
Time: 4pm Tuesday 11th May
Conditions: very windy in BC, even windier up higher.

Hello Folks, it's Pat here. The plan is that early tomorrow (Wednesday) morning we'll head up through the icefall, bypass Camp 1 and arrive in Camp 2, hopefully around late morning. We'll rest there on Thursday before moving up to Camp 3 on Friday morning. All things going well we then plan to move up and across the Yellow Band and the Geneva Spur before arriving at the South Col, the location of Camp 4, on Saturday, with a summit attempt on the Saturday night/Sunday morning.

Our forecast suggests winds will remain strong until Friday/Saturday, and then drop to speeds of around 15 knots, with temperatures at the summit being around -30 degrees C. We believe we are strong enough to be able to summit in these conditions. I'm sure there'll also be a number of other teams trying over the weekend.

I'm feeling a little nervous but I'm really keen just to get back up to C2 and go climbing - we were last there two weeks ago now.

I haven't left our camp all day. We sorted out food this morning, and then I had a shower and I trimmed my beard (again). Unfortunately it's still ginger. After lunch I spent the afternoon in my tent packing (although most of our stuff is already at Camp 2), and double-checked battery charges and camera equipment etc.

There's nothing left for it now,
other than to make a phone call or two and try and relax. Rabin's making dahl baht for the fellas tonight but I've asked him just to do me a big plate of pasta - I find this gives me a bit more energy in the icefall.

I'll be taking the comms gear up to C2 and higher, so I'll still be able post updates and receive your messages. It should be an exciting five or six days coming up so I hope you stay tuned.