Editor's Note: This is a sensitive time on Mount Everest.  The Chinese national climbing team is attempting the peak from the north side of Mount Everest, where they hope to take the Olympic torch to the top. With obvious geopolitical implications in the Tibetan homeland, draconian restrictions have been placed on satellite telephone communications from the south side of Mount Everest in Nepal, as well as restrictions on how high climbers can go on the South Col route in Nepal. As a result, dispatches are not as regular as in previous years on GreatOutdoors.com; note however that our Everest correspondents will be in touch as often as  satellite communication is permitted by Nepalese authorities.

GreatOutdoors.com, this is Dave Hahn with a dispatch from Everest Base Camp on  the Nepal side, obviously, nobody besides the Chinese are on the Chinese side and we're rooting for the Chinese climbers to summit the mountain right now and get their torch up there so we can get on with our climbing from the south side. I'm back down at base camp right now, it's been snowing here the past three days, not to a great depth, but this is the first snow we've had all season, we figure this is coming from a cyclone about 900 miles away in the Bay of Bengal,. We don't imagine the cyclone is going to come to mount Everest but this is moisture spawned from it. And so a little bit of snow is not a bade thing, makes it a little cool in base camp today, no big deal,  lots of game playing. My hope is to head up the mountain with Nicky Messner and Sanduk from Thyangboche tomorrow. We need another acclimatization round through Camp II, not a long one, but we need another trip up through the icefall, another few nights up there. We hope there's progress, well, we need progress on the north side so we can have some progress pushing the route on the south side, but that won't affect Nicky and I  on this rotation, we just  camp II again. I'll try to be in touch. Bye for now