Monday 1st May 2000 - Kangchenjunga Base Camp

Today was a bit like the curate's egg, good in parts. The day started particularly badly for the expedition leader who discovered that his beloved Wimbledon Football Club had lost to Bradford City (0-3) and are now in the premiership relegation zone. Deep gloom. Things perked up on the mountain, however, when John Doyle's hard working team radioed to Base Camp at 1300 that they had foregone their Rest Day and had moved up the mountain to establish Camp 3 at about 7200 metres on the edge of the Great Shelf. It had been a hard day for them in extreme cold and poor visibility but they were highly delighted (in their own very understated way) with what they had achieved. They are likely to be too tired to repeat the process tomorrow and will probably have a well earned Rest Day at camp 2.

At Camp 1 Andy Hughes team did have a rest day whilst the 4 Sherpas did a carry to Camp 2. Not satisfied with that the Sherpas carried on and accompanied John Doyle's team up to Camp 3, still carrying loads. A very strong performance indeed. Only a couple more carries are required from Camp 1 to Camp 2 before everything that needs to be moved will be and we can concentrate on consolidating Camp 3 and forging the way to Camp 4.

We recovered one of the digital cameras from Camp 1 today but there was not much new to download so you are treated to pictures of the "DHL" team, Aleck Burrell and Roddy McArthur (at the rear L-R) and James Raitt and Larry Foden at Camp 1 this morning.