Everest Diary/Grania Willis: Plans, as they do so often on big mountaineering expeditions, have changed. After weeks of waiting, we had expected to leave for our summit push on Everest yesterday.
But team leader Russell Brice called a meeting last Sunday to tell us that our departure for the top had been delayed or potentially cancelled altogether.
Brice had decreed the weather windows of May 21st/22nd and 28th/29th to be too narrow and too dangerous for his Himalayan Experience (Himex) clients, but we were all geared up for a crack at the summit in the early part of June.
Originally, we had been aiming for the summit on June 3rd or 4th - leaving from advanced base camp (ABC) yesterday.
Then it looked as though we might be going a day early for a summit bid on June 3rd or 4th.
But, on Sunday morning, the Himex boss summoned us all to meet under the prayer flags. It was crunch time.
"We were aiming for the 3rd and 4th, but the forecast is now saying the 4th and 5th", Brice said, as his audience of 18 climbers and four guides clung to his every word.
"There are two things I can do. I can say the expedition is over and get you back to Kathmandu by the 9th, or I can say let's wait and we can try for the 4th and 5th. But that's our last try."
There was a stunned silence as the import of this message sank in.
If the weather changed, as it had done consistently since we embarked on the apparently endless wait for a weather window, we would be leaving advanced base camp in a downward rather than upward direction.
But Brice's next words cheered us considerably. "The forecast we have is the best any of us have seen up to now. It's the very first time the jet stream has been pushed aside.
"The winds will be less than 10 knots, but the temperature will still be in the region of -22. We can't expect anything better than -20."
Supplies of everything, including gas for cooking and heating, are now at a critical level. But New Zealander Brice is not a quitter.
"We are now right down to the end of our supplies", he said, "but a little bit of discomfort means we can stay a few days longer. It'll be minor discomfort for major gain, but this is our last chance.
"There are no other scenarios. If we go, we go in two days and we give it our best shot." Brice says that the extra wait is now costing him $7,000 a day.
The Sherpas have already put $150,000 worth of oxygen bottles in place up the mountain.
If next weekend's weather window closes, that and thousands more dollars worth of tents and equipment will have to be stripped off the hill without any of us having got past camp II.
Many teams have already abandoned the effort. With permits to stay in Tibet expired, they've simply had to call it a day. They have headed - not for the hills - but for home.
Tents have vanished overnight and yak bells are now a daily accompaniment to the sound of life at 6,400 metres.
The bottom half of ABC has been returned to the glacier.
But it is patience rather than permits that has expired in other teams. Tired by the waiting and numerous setbacks, they've pushed on up the mountain and been beaten back by the weather.
The weather hasn't got the better of everyone, however. The Norwegian team members, who went for one of the earlier windows and returned with their tails between their legs, are now celebrating a triumphant return from the summit.
All five team members and their five Sherpas summited in the early hours of Sunday morning before the winds got up.
The team has been in the Himalaya since early March, climbing Island Peak in Nepal as a warm-up for the big one.
Sickness and, in one case, lack of time, reduced their numbers from 12 to the quintet that stood on the top of the world on Sunday.
The expedition was led by Jon Gangdal, who was making his fourth assault on the world's highest mountain.
Gangdal suffered a life-threatening liver infection after his 2003 attempt, but has finally realised his dream.
The only non-Norwegian member, Swede Mattias Karlsson, was first of the five to summit at 6am and, incredibly, was back down at ABC by 2.30 that afternoon.
I can't hope to emulate that feat, but I leave for the North Col tomorrow with five days' climbing ahead of me, culminating in my final summit bid - God speed - next Sunday morning.
The Grania Willis Everest Challenge 2005, supported by The North Face, SORD Data Systems, Peak Centre Ireland and Great Outdoors, is in aid of the Irish Hospice Foundation and the Friends of St Luke's Hospital.
Donations to the fund can be made to The Grania Willis Everest Challenge, Permanent TSB, Blackrock, Co Dublin, account number 86877341, sort code 99-06-44. Visa card donations to 01-2303009.