A successful day today, as we finally found a route through to the ice fall from Base Camp. We woke at 6 this morning and again split into teams to look at routes to the ice fall. It is quite critical that we get this right because if we commit ourselves to a bad line we could lose vital time.

One team looked at a route around to the extreme left, which would probably have entailed moving Base Camp. This afternoon, Colin and Val looked again at a route we checked yesterday and decided that it was the best and safest available.

Tomorrow, we will start ferrying loads to the base of the ice fall along this route and Dave B, Ian Venables, Dick Gale and Sherpa Pema will camp below the ice fall (advance base) with a view to pushing the route up the ice fall over the following days. The rest of us will continue to ferry loads.

Dave Tait