Today was an enforced rest day as a result of a huge dump of snow on the mountain yesterday afternoon & evening which meant that there was a high risk of avalanche. Indeed all during the night and during today, particularly once the sun got up today and weakened the layers bonding the snow together, the avalanches were pouring off the surrounding peaks. Some very spectacular avalanches fell from the east face of Jannu, one got airborne and must have travelled nearly a kilometre. We got some good pictures of it but only on slide film not on the Ricoh digital cameras which we have been using to download images to the website. (One of the team said that we normally "

" at about 1230 - but we didn't think it was that funny!)

Although it is frustrating being consigned to Base Camp it is not necessarily a bad thing as we are still not fully acclimatised and it does no harm to spend a day relaxing at this altitude whilst the many physiological changes to our bodies continue.

On a sad note, one of the team, Sgt Neil Greenwood, has developed a medical problem which, although not serious, is incompatible with him remaining at Base Camp. We have therefore arranged for Neil to be flown by helicopter to Kathmandu tomorrow morning and we hope to see him back here at Base Camp before very long.

This afternoon the expedition leader and Dave Pearce went up to the Korean expedition camp just above us to discuss with their leader, Mr Um, management of the fixed ropes on sections of the route up the mountain. Mr Um is a very famous Korean mountaineer who has climbed 12 of the 14 mountains which are higher than 8000 metres. If he is successful on Kangchenjunga he will have only K2 left to climb and he intends to go straight from here to Pakistan to attempt it during June / July.

The fourteen mountains over 8000 metres in height are:

Kangchenjunga 8586m Nepal

Dhaulagiri 8167m Nepal

Nanga Parbat 8125m Pakistan

Annapurna I 8091m Nepal

Gasherbrum I 8068m Pakistan

Broad Peak 8051m Pakistan

Gasherbrum II 8035m Pakistan

Shisha Pangma 8027m Nepal

We agreed with Mr Um that we could continue to monitor the safety of the fixed ropes and improve the placement of the anchors which hold the ropes to the snow or rock (e.g. pitons, snow stakes, etc) where we think that safety can be improved. Dave Pearce is one of a large number of the team who have a particularly well developed knowledge of anchor placement and Mr Um seemed very pleased to tap into this expertise. It is important on a big mountain like Kangchenjunga that expeditions agree to work together on such matters as fixing ropes for their own safety.

Today's picture shows our four Sherpas, Pema (the Sirdar), Nima Dorje, Da Phuri and Pemba Norbu. We will provide more detailed information about these Sherpas in a future diary update as we think that you may be interested in the life of a Sherpa.