The climb goes on despite an emotional farewell

EVEREST MISSION'We will treat Everest as if we were asked to eat an elephant, and take it out bite by bite until we finally eat the elephant... hopefully over the next 40 days."

Some pep talk there from Pat Falvey, leader of the Irish Wyeth Everest Expedition, shortly before he and his fellow climber, Clare O'Leary, made several attempts to move up the mountain over a week ago - only to find the conditions too dangerous, or the "elephant" a bit too angry.

In fact, the two climbers and their Sherpa team are now making steady progress, having established Camp Two at 22,500ft and having named it "Lowe Alpine" after one of their sponsors.

However, their initial attempt to achieve this was thwarted by a serac collapse in the Khumbu glacier on the weekend of April 17th and 18th.

Falvey and O'Leary had bid an emotional farewell to one of their team several days before that. John Joyce (43), the Co Galway representative on the group, was forced to descend after he developed exhaustion and dehydration during his stay at the 20,500ft Camp One on the mountain. Disappointed but philosophical, Joyce wished Falvey and O'Leary the very best before his departure on the advice of doctors at the Himalayan Rescue Association's clinic at base camp.

An avalanche witnessed by Joyce wouldn't have helped his condition, according to his team leader.

In fact, as Falvey recorded on the expedition website, Joyce was in a rather awkward position (relieving himself after a stomach cramp) when he witnessed the dramatic snowfall at Camp One on April 13th.

Joyce had to flee the makeshift toilet cubicle, made from ice blocks.

He resembled a snowman, covered in white spindrift and "still fixing his trousers", when he emerged.

Camp Two was finally established by the team on April 19th, and the pair and their Sherpas then moved up to the Lhotse face several days later. "After about 800ft, temperatures were minus 40 degrees, winds were very high and we got very cold, so we retreated," Falvey said.

Early this week, conditions permitting, the pair will move back up and make a bid to establish Camp Three, a narrow platform leading out of the 4,000ft high Lhotse wall which is climbed using fixed ropes.

O'Leary is "in good health", and fit enough for several more navigations of the treacherous Khumbu ice fall as part of the summit preparation.

However, both Falvey and herself have already contracted the racking, dry "Khumbu cough" which seems to be almost unavoidable at such altitudes.

She makes light of what Falvey describes on his website as a "spectacular, but treacherous, horror-chamber of bottomless crevasses, seracs and ice blocks" with "chunks of ice as large as houses" among freestanding ice walls of up to 30ft in height.

However, Falvey says he has never seen the ice fall move so fast and show such unstable characteristics.

A team of "ice fall doctors" maintain the route daily to try to ensure that there are no serious casualties on the "ever-changing maze".

"It isn't technically difficult but is quite dangerous," the Bandon doctor said.

"It took us five hours to get through the first time, which is pretty good. It takes most groups at least seven hours."

Camp Three leads to the traverse to the mountain's "yellow band".

The final, and fourth, camp on the South Col, at 26,000ft, represents the penultimate stage of the climb. O'Leary hopes to be the first Irish woman to step onto that small, spectacular platform in several weeks' time... weather and health permitting.

The Irish Wyeth Everest expedition's progress can be followed on www.patfalvey.com and The Irish Times HealthSupplement will be carrying periodical reports, talking to the climbers via satellite link from the mountain.