From Base Camp on 8th May I left with Richard Parks and Steve Williams who were doing the 737 challenge. Richard was a Welsh rugby player and Steve is a double gold medal Olympic rower 1st gold at Athens with Mathew Pinsent. 737 challenges is the 7 summits and 3 poles, Everest being the third pole in 7 months, as they were late getting back from the North Pole they came to Everest 3 weeks late and had to catch up. I was to climb to Camp 1 through the Khumbu ice fall to Camp 1 then Camp 2 for a few days then I was joining the main team with David Hamilton for the assault plan.

After a few days with the two guys we climbed to Camp 3 on Lhotse face on 12th. After getting all sorted out at 7300m David I a learnt that the weather forecast for 14th our predicted summit day was to be 60 mph winds on the summit. The dilemma was do we take the chance go to South Col on oxygen and see what it’s doing or back of to Camp 2 in the Western Cwm and wait. Normally you can sit it out at a high camp but on Everest as we were using oxygen that is a vital resource and such a luxury we could not really afford to take. At 6 pm we started abseiling down the Lhotse face and by 8.30 pm we came back to Camp 2 by head torch.

We rested at Camp 2 and on 14th re-ascended to Camp 3 the next day on oxygen at 2 ½ litres a minute started climbing to South Col camp at 7950m it took around 6 hours to get there climbing through the yellow band and crossing the Genèva Spur. At the South Col I came off the oxygen for 90 minutes and felt ok, no headaches at all and spent time putting up tents and cutting snow and picking one or two gas cylinders up.

The South Col is a lot cleaner than the pictures taken in 1993 there is some rubbish remaining mostly gas cylinders but oxygen cylinder I saw were depots for this year, last year Everest trip depots empty’s at South Col the Sherpa’s picked the empty’s up and when they were doing carries and I am pleased to say we did at the end get all 115 bottles down from Everest this year. The bottles will now be refilled in India with Oxygen. Some of the ones rented from Henry Todd will be refilled by him.

We left at 9.08pm on Sunday 15th May. It took a steady pace across South Col and on upwards to the balcony I did not see the Japanese dead man on the ropes though I knew he was there. David asked the Japanese team if they wanted him cut loose the said that they will drag him down later, I helped with this a week later at the head of Western Cwm. From the balcony at 1.15 am on 16th we moved off along the South East Ridge towards the first oxygen change below the south summit. The south summit was much harder than I thought advanced scrambling on fixed lines. The south summit was reached around 4.30 am on-wards, I dropped to the gap and could see the famous Hillary Step. Many people say that once you get over the step you have done it, it turns out to be about 1 hour to the top from there. The

Hillary Step reminded me of Milestone Buttress fixed rope but rock and ice climbing, the route then goes left into a crack, I hyperventilated and wet myself. This is common as the lung muscles and spontaneous movement the blander mussels contact. This has happened a few times on Cho Oyu as well.

The final 500meters horizontally took around 45 minutes but the wind which was predicted to be 20 mph was around 40 mph and the temperature ended up being -25 to -35 c I think it was the coldest I have been or at least felt. Despite the fact it has taken most of my life to get in a position to attempt Everest and to do it I probably spent only 3-5 minutes on the summit. Mostly the descent was ok one client said to me "Andy I can’t see" at the Hillary Step, despite the sentence being a short one it took me a while to think of what to say , said something like I get you down. David got him over the south summit his eyes had not recovered and I took him to balcony and down. It was pressure in his eyes. I don’t know whether he has had laser eye treatment but this is a big problem at extreme altitude.