16 May

The weather had remained bad overnight, with the wind probably getting stronger and more snow building up on the base. Benny's usual message seemed funny. We all thought it unlikely any plane would land today in the wind and from the weather forecast we didn't expect tomorrow to be any better. It was another long breakfast making a big dent in the endless supply of coffee.

There was a smell coming from the two back toilet/shower rooms in the middle of the accommodation block so Alan decided to dig out the air vent. These air vents were at the top of the building, probably 12foot off the ground, but the snow had drifted that high. I tried to dig the windows out so we had some more light and Paul dug a snow hole in one of the drifts. It soon turned out to be pointless digging the windows out, there was too much snow and more being blown into the drift all the time. The two gable ends of the accommodation block were not as bad since they were not directly blocking the path of the wind. Even so the fire escape doors were buried in 3 feet of snow, so as something to do and a bit of exercise I dug one out. The accommodation block is all made of wood. The atmosphere here is very dry; there is little water about, the snow just turns into vapor and it rarely rains. As a result the wood of the building is very dry and would burn down very easily. Not that we intended to set fire to the place, but you never know.

There was another forecast that night. The weather would clear from the south and should be clear here in two days. It looked like they may be able to fly to get the other teams out the next day. It was still clear where we wanted to go so we were not expecting problems once we got there. We didn't think there had been any fresh snowfall so there were unlikely to be any avalanche risks.