Colin, Dick and Andy woke early this morning up at Camp 2 and headed off towards the ropes leading to Camp 3. They encountered very heavy and deep fresh snow over a hard base, which made the going very difficult and dangerous. They spent a great deal of time digging out the ropes and started to progress upwards; Andy went to the top of the first rope. At this point, they had to make the call to abandon plans for the day as the avalanche risk was huge and they retired to the tents. To make matters worse, it then started snowing and it has continued heavily all day.

Val left Base Camp early this morning and joined Ben at Camp 1. They then moved together up to Camp Intermediate through about 6" of fresh snow and they reported that they were safely in place at 1400 hours. The Sherpas also moved from Intermediate to Camp 2 where they have joined Colin et al. It is likely that the Camp 2 Group will have to sit it out in the tents tomorrow while the snow, hopefully, starts to consolidate.

We continue to position ourselves as best we can so that we are able to strike for the summit in the event of a break in the weather.

Down at Base Camp, it has snowed all day and we are still hoping for a change in the weather!

I'm afraid we have no new photographs today as the lack of sunshine has limited our ability to charge our batteries.