NEWS: 30th Sep 2006
 
Update from Jon Morgan

I set off, lightly laden, for camp 1, 6400m a couple of days ago with several others. We stopped after an hour or so, for a drink, and Mike asked the group as a whole how we were all feeling. He said he felt breathless and was panting and coughing despite a steady pace. I felt washed out and had a headache so we both decided to return to basecamp.

The next morning he had arranged a jeep to take him to the Nepali border (and hence home to England, as he had been having a hard time with his chest for a while). I decided to hop on board, and take advantage of a night down lower- much lower in fact. It took us all day, initially to walk down to the roadhead at 5300m, then down, down down to Zhangmu, not Zermatt as previously blogged(!!!), at 2300m. What a contrast- temperate rainforest, waterfalls, hustle and bustle??.11 hours uninterrupted sleep felt great though, even though Chinese beds are even firmer than our Thermarests!

My headache greatly improved, though not totally disappeared, so I suspect as well as altitude it may be sinusitis. So today I reversed the process with 5 hours uphill in the jeep and I just arrived at ABC before dark, feeling a hundred times better on the way up than I had on the way down.

So the plan is camp 1 for me tomorrow, the others moving up to 2, then all going well, perhaps summit attempts for the main group on Mon, and me too if I can catch up! There has been a definite shift in optimism, since the 5 day storm, which some had thought had put the mountain totally out of condition. But the westerlies appear to have stripped most of the new snow, and with windspeeds of less than 15 knots at 8000m predicted for Sun and Mon fingers crossed??