Everest Diary: It's official. I am depressed. And anyone who knows me, knows that is not a state I am comfortable with. But I've been turned around. Heading up to camp II after two acclimatisation nights at the 7,000-metre camp I on the North Col, I was too slow and, as anyone who knows me knows, slow is not a state I am comfortable with.
I am usually a demon on the mountain. In fact I have one friend who I poked up the "Sphinx" in my efforts to get him fitter and faster. Thankfully, for his sake at least, my endeavours have proved fantastically successful.
But maybe I should have been the pokee, rather than the poker. Because I certainly ran out of poke when my Polar outdoor computer - part of a sponsorship deal with Dublin adventure store the Great Outdoors - read just under 7,250 metres.
In seriously deteriorating conditions, New Zealand guide Dean Staples suggested that Frenchman Antoine Boulanger and I should turn around and head back down the mountain.
I was totally devastated. All right, the weather was certainly getting drastically worse and there was a long way to go to get to the 7,550-metre camp II, but I still didn't want to - what I perceived as - admit defeat.
Antoine, who lives up to his name by being as thin as a French stick, was quite happy to turn round, even if I wasn't. But by the time we got back to the North Col, I had realised the wisdom of the decision, whereas Antoine had by then abandoned all hope of a summit attempt, despite the fact that we're not even halfway into the expedition.
We managed to persuade him that this was merely a training exercise and, while reaching camp II was obviously desirable, the ultimate goal was the summit and there was another month in which to achieve that.
After two sleepless nights, American Kevin Goldstein hadn't even made an attempt to get to camp II, opting to head straight back down to advanced base camp (ABC). And, not long after Antoine and I arrived back at the North Col, Australian Paul Hockey was on the radio to say that he too was turning round.
Just five clients and four guides made the full trip to camp II. Each and every one of them said it was a seven-hour journey to hell. With 80km/h winds and horrendous snow blizzards, it was impossible to see anything, but safety at least was guaranteed with climbers clipped into fixed lines.
"It was total survival mode," my erstwhile tent-mate Peggy Foster said afterwards. "You had to keep moving because no one else could do it for you."
The 45-year-old climber is hoping to summit Everest to become the first female Canadian to complete the Seven Summits, the highest peaks in the seven continents. But she has a rival climbing on the south side of Everest, which traditionally provides the earlier summits each season.
Virtually nobody slept at camp II because of the continuing gale-force winds, and plans to head further up towards camp III the following day were abandoned and everyone returned to ABC.
It was only revealed the following night that the North Col store tent had been blown into a crevasse during the storm. But the hard-working sherpa team headed up the next day to rescue it and its contents.
"That was a mild day on Everest," Himalayan Experience boss Russell Brice informed the exhausted climbers when they arrived back at ABC. Despite his pseudonym - Big Boss - among his Nepali and Tibetan workforce, Brice tells his clients there is only one boss, "the mountain".
But "my" decision to have an extra night at ABC has paid dividends. The mild frostbite on my cheeks has healed up, although it was an anxious moment wondering whether the rapid peeling of the damaged flesh would reveal skin 15 years younger or 15 years older.
Russell Brice told me I looked 100 years younger, but I'm not sure that was a compliment.
I've been using the spare time to indulge in copious quantities of what the container in the mess tent claims to be "drinking chhoklet". This is purely medicinal, in a bid to put some flesh on my bones, particularly the hip variety, which are threatening to burst through my ultra-padded down suit.
I'm going to need every bit of flesh and every bit of down to keep me warm high up on the hill. There is already warning of a week's snow, with just under a metre of precipitation forecast, but the snow will actually be warmer than the icy blasts, when the wind-chill factor drops the temperatures dramatically.
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.