Thank you Yell

Hi this is Matthew and this is a message for Yell, my Everest 12 Expedition Sponsors. I met many people at the Yell Offices in Reading and I shall try and remember names whilst at altitude!! Mike, Kimberley, Julie, Christian, Sue, Jon, Demelza, Jin and Sandra. I hope I have remembered everyone but forgive me if I have omitted anyone this is not intentional. I would like to kindly thank all the staff at Yell for giving me this fantastic opportunity.

Over the past month I have been travelling about 100 miles from Katmandu to Everest Base Camp and once at Base Camp which is where I am speaking to you now, I have spent a large amount of the time with my leader Rob Casserley and fellow climber Becky ascending and descending the mountain in an effort to acclimatize and now we have reached an altitude of around 7200m this is great. Over the past few days I am pleased to report we have made the climb to Camp 3 successfully and have now returned to Base Camp which basically means our acclimatization is now complete and we are waiting for a window of good weather which we can make our summit attempt on. This will fantastic and as we were behind most of the other groups we have now caught up by touching Camp 3 at 7200m a few days ago and then down to BC at 5300m so very much appreciating the increase in oxygen. Next time we visit Camp 3 we will be using supplementary oxygen but for the time being we are making our way down the valley for much needed R & R and then will return to Base Camp to trial the oxygen systems.

So again, thank you to everyone at Yell for all your support which of course is invaluable and I would not be here without you. Yes a huge thank you to everyone and now with 10-14 days to wait for better weather to attempt a summit bid I will go for some rest and update you prior to the final push.

This is Matthew from Base Camp, Over and Out!