22nd April - Day 26 We're socked in by bad weather. It was very windy overnight and a heavy snow fall has kept us at ABC. Its a day of wrapping up warm in down filled clothing and drinking lots of tea in the mess tent, telling tall stories of daring do.
Around mid afternoon a serious game of minus 10degC Frozen Finger Scrabble begins, aided by excellent english cheese and the remains of a box of wine. The combatants try to get all sorts of words past the judges depending on their origin: English (plain outrageous spelling), New Zealand (plain bad), Tibetan (smart American), etc. The debate rages on into the night.

23rd April - Day 27 It looked like the weather would hold for the morning and then break in the afternoon, so no work, fixing camps on the mountain was possible. Most of the climbing team took a 3hr. recce. across the Rongbuk glacier to the Rapiu La, a pass of 6548m at the base of the huge buttress that is the north east ridge of mount Everest. Although the weather was not brilliant, we did get a flash view between the clouds of the awesome Kangshung Face and the terrifying corniced ridge line of the N.E. ridge leading up to the Pinnacles (first climbed by Russell Brice our leader and Harry Taylor in 1988).

24th April - Day 28 Last night was strange. It started off perfectly clear with a thick star soup of a jet black sky. When we were turning in (which is typically around 9:00pm) the periodic flash of lightening illuminated the Rapui La pass south east of ABC. Some time later in the middle of the night all of us (we later agreed) sat bolt up right in our tents expecting the worst as a aweful sound of a rock avalance thundered towards us. It was, in fact, the thunder associated with the earlier lightening and we were in the middle of a howler of a storm.
Pinned down in camp again, the plan we had had for the north col, is shelved and the forecast says more of this for a couple of days. We resign ourselves to a waiting game and break out the Monopoly board. 3 hours later Russell has couvered the property market and blown out the competition with a merciless display of the ruthless landlord.
Most folk turn in early this evening. Everyone has their own regime but for me it includes:-
Straight into the sleeping bag with full down kit on, drinking water bottle (filled with hot water from the mess tent earlier) straight into the bottom of the sleeping bag and warming icey toes, do teeth, take out contacts, take bulk store of contacts out of fleece and place between legs to continue non freeze situation, put pee bottle in sleep bag (for use later and better warm than cold), suntan cream into sleep bag (it'll freeze otherwise), camera into sleep bag for same reason, head torch is on head at moment but will later join rest of paraphenalia in sleeping bag. Now peel off down kit top and bottom and fleeces etc. and zip up and seal sleep bag around neck and then around face. Prepare for -10degC to -20degC night and wish longingly that you were curled up with your girlfriend who you miss desperately.
A few hours of sleep later you wake up needing to pee because you've been drinking like a fish to avoid dehydration which is a real problem at these altitudes. You battle to find the head torch and sort out the pee bottle. Do the business and before resealing the sleeping bad wack down a third of litre of water from the drinking bottle (do not make a bottle ID mistake at this stage).

25th April - Day 29 Still pinned down in ABC by bad weather. High winds up above the North Col make it impossible to work on fixing rope and installing camps. We're hopefull the weather will improve tomorrow. In the meantime the team uses small gaps in the weather to do short hikes to keep legs and lungs working.
David, Ivan, Chung and Kieron, who had all been held back a little by various ailments and so have yet to make the North Col are all getting stronger and so the next plan is to get the entire team to the N. Col. which will be a good psychological boost.
During our time pinned in ABC Russell has been negotiating with the other teams. We have put the route in to the north col. and the fixed rope on that route is ours. The other teams will want to use it and when our sherpa's forge ahead on the north ridge the other teams will want to follow also. Russell takes the lead in pulling together a supply of rope from all the teams and a combined sherpa force to work together high on the mountain. As the weather clears over the next few days the results of the these negotiations and our own climbing team pushing up the north ridge should bear fruit.

more in few days
Tony Kelly
Advanced Base Camp - 6460m
Everest 2000 - North Side