If the word around camp is anything to go by, the final assault on the summit of Everest will begin in the early hours of Thursday morning. Journalists and accompanying officials have spent much of the day taking souvenir photos and snapping up post cards at the “world’s highest post office”.

The rumours would appear to be based on nothing more than collective will (or hysteria, perhaps).

A brief flurry of concern fizzed around camp when, after two days of clear skies, the wind picked up and clouds blocked our view of Everest.

This project is no walk in the park, though, as the climbers hanging around here are keen to emphasise.

But optimism remains that by mid-morning tomorrow, the mighty achievement may have been accomplished.

Dave and I will be keeping our fingers crossed. Mark, being a South African, is holding his thumbs.

China mountaineering team spokesman Zhang Zhijian details on a diagram the proposed route for the Olympic torch’s ascent of the world’s highest mountain Mount Everest, also known as Qomolangma. Photo by David Gray.

At an early press conference today the novel inclusion of information we hadn’t heard before briefly raised spirits in what has become quite a downbeat media camp.

As the weekend snowstorms destroyed the careful preparations the Chinese had made on the mountain and a second week in Tibet became an inevitability, there has been a lot of talk about going home. Not just from journalists, either. Many of the officials who travelled with us from Beijing or joined us at Lhasa airport barely attempt to disguise their low spirits any more. I don’t know whether the cause is the altitude, the cold, the increasingly predictable diet, the lack of showers or just day after day of telling news-hungry journalists that there is no news. One of the senior officials told me again today that he thought we were getting “closer and closer” to “our goal”, while another said he thought our fond farewells would not be not too far away.

Perhaps I’m clutching at straws.

Still, at today’s briefing, the full team of 31 Chinese on the mountain was listed so at least we have names, ages, sexes, and, quite interestingly, ethnic origins to flesh out the “climbers” we refer to in our stories. They are a bit more human now. The continuing good weather has also raised expectations that the end might be nigh. It’s quite windy down here but on the mountain, the tell-tale flag of snow coming off the peak suggests the wind is not too strong and is blowing in a westerly direction. A mountaineering official has told us that it is the east wind that brings snow.

So the hopes are high that they might summit on Wednesday or Thursday and we could all be off the mountain in time to celebrate Dave’s birthday with a few beers at the weekend.

Picture by David Gray

The foreign media contingent was moved from the huts to rooms inside the media centre late on Saturday evening, due to to the extreme weather. It was welcome, and much warmer. It seems it was by way of compensation for not taking us back to a hotel for a shower and a night in a proper bed, as we had requested. After the recent snow, the roads were apparently too dangerous.

One man who did get away was Joerg Brase of German television. Joerg had been suffering with high blood pressure ever since our arrival at the foot of Everest.

He decided that the risk to his health was not worth the story we might get if the torch does finally get to the top of the mountain.

The altitude effects nearly all of us. A slow walk up stairs will have all but the Tibetans puffing and wheezing like 20-a-day smokers.

Headaches are commonplace and sleep, even in the relative warmth of the inside of the media centre, is troubled.

Several of our contingent have had upset stomachs, not a pleasant experience at night when the latrine is a 100-metre walk (or dash) in the freezing cold.

I have felt sluggish and lethargic since we arrived here and, when writing, struggle to recall sometimes very simple words or constructions.

We do have the wonderful Dr Li, who roams around the camp telling us to drink plenty of water and to pace ourselves when working.

He also tolerates our frequent demands to use the machine he wears around his neck to test our heart beat and blood oxygen levels.

Today my heartbeat was 103, my oxygen a rather disappointing 81 percent. Dave was 97 and 86 (after hyperventilating before the test, the cheat), while Mark was an impressive 75 and 86.

Pix from top: Chinese border policemen take photographs of each other near their guard posts in front of Everest. And Buddhist monks and nuns feed yaks after a snowfall outside the nearby Rongbo Monastery. Photos by David Gray

I heard excited cries outside our hut this morning and the optimist in me immediately thought the climbers had reached the summit of Everest with the Olympic torch.

A warm bath, clean clothes and bedding were only a matter of hours away, I thought, as I poked my nose over the top of my sleeping bag into the icy cold.

Enthused by the prospect of the news, I slid out of my nylon cocoon, stepped into my boots and clad in little more than a ski jacket and long johns pushed open the cabin door.

The reason for the noisy excitement of our Tibetan hosts was immediately apparent as a huge clump of snow landed on my size 10s and a blizzard of white flakes obscured the medical tent which usually provides our outlook.

As with most people who have grown up in Britain, snow is a magical thing to me. Redolent of Christmas, snowball fights, evenings by the fire, a warming single malt and so on…

But here in the shadow of Everest, my immediate thought was that this would surely mean a delay to the climbers’ progress up the mountain.

My second thought was that snow melts and the holes in the cabin roof would soon be dousing us in ice-cold water.

I managed to my gear into the media centre before the drops turned into a dribble and within a couple of hours, our hosts had dispatched local men to wrap the huts in plastic sheeting.

Unfortunately, in the process of water-proofing my cabin, one of the hardy young mountain men put his foot straight through the recycled cardboard leaving a huge hole right over where my head usually lies at night.

Of course, whatever inconveniences we may be suffering down here pale beside what it must be like to be up Everest during a snowstorm.

Looking towards her (she is a she, I am told) through the snow storm, you realize once again that this is not a novelty fun run. People’s lives are at risk up there.

Pix from the top: What a difference 24 hours can make … see yesterday’s snap. Snow-covered yaks rest outside the Rongbo Monastery at the foot of Everest. And a kitchen worker sweeps snow off the roof of the make-shift dining room at the media centre camp. Photos by David Gray.

Remarkably we managed to get to our night stop, Tingri (4,300m), in time for lunch.

There was one morning diversion to visit Pu Bu, a model farmer who showed off the two story house he had built in the last few years.

He was 63 but typically looked much older. The Tibetan environment is unforgiving and adds a decade or two to the complexion, especially if your work is on the land.

Crying off the afternoon excursion, photographer David Gray and I headed down to new Tingri so he could file some pictures at an Internet café.

Strolling down the main street with a couple of our interpreters, we were greeted with cheery smiles by almost everybody and the odd “hello!” from children of school age.

One girl cycled past wearing a blue woolly hat with “Everton” written in white across the front. She was not nearly as impressed as I was by the fact that I should have come across a fan of Liverpool’s second soccer club so far away from England.

The elderly Tibetan man stands in his house near the Tibetan town of Shegar April 27, 2008. REUTERS/David Gray (CHINA)

We’re here, where’s the torch?

We arrived. For a long time it looked like we wouldn’t, but on Monday morning, four days after leaving Beijing, 11 foreign journalists arrived at the media centre on the lower slopes of Mount Everest to report on the torch relay.

It brought to an end two of weeks of uncertainty that started when a briefing was cancelled and we heard nothing more until we were summoned to the Beijing Olympic media centre on the morning of our scheduled departure. The party of foreign media, at this stage 20-strong, was informed that bad weather had caused a delay to our journey and the departure ceremony for the climb team and torch had been cancelled.

Little did we know, although we might have guessed, that the Tibet Autonomous Region did not want foreign journalists poking around the still sensitive sores of the March riots. It took pressure from the central government, we have now learned, for them to finally allow us to go.

But the lost days meant we would be going from 54 metres above sea level in Beijing to Everest Base Camp (5,200m) in just three days – something that rang serious alarm bells with the doctors we consulted. “I would strongly advise against it,” said one British doctor, an expert on high altitude sickness who reached the summit of Everest last year. “You’re putting yourself in a position where you could get something that could kill you.”

There followed three days of back and forth with deadlines missed and pushed back, meetings in cafes, stand-offs, stand-downs, demands for money, demands for information and a BOCOG employee being chased down the street by reporters trying to stuff wads of cash into his hands.

Chinese security personnel watch from their observation post in front of the peak of Mount Everest, also known as Qomolangma, near Everest Base Camp April 28, 2008. A small group of foreign reporters have been allowed into the region to witness the Olympic torch ascend Everest. REUTERS/David Gray (CHINA)