It's about 6pm on the 20th of September and I'm calling you from Base Camp. I'm watching Base Camp turn white. It's begun to snow quite consistently.

I still believe the Monsoon has ended. I believe that partly because this morning we saw high clouds moving rather fast from the north/northeast, not from the south/southwest direction we'd expect for a monsoon flow. It's snowing here all the same at Base Camp this evening.

It's been a pretty big day. At 11:15 am, Nima Tashi's voice burst on the radio from Camp I, proudly proclaiming Camp I had been established finally. They ended up fixing 200 more meters of rope this morning to get there. But Nima Tashi and the guys put up three tents and Camp I is established.

The other great thing that happened today is that Maegan and Grant returned to us. It was great to see them walk into camp about 3pm. They had reported, when they got their look at Lobuche, that it was very pillowed up and fat from a snow accumulation standpoint. Grant's comment, and Maegan concurred, was that even if for some reason there hadn't been avalanche hazard, it would have been very difficult to wade through that deep snow on Lobuche.

So we're all back together, getting ready to settle down. An interesting thing happened about two or three mornings ago. Nupstse was barking at about 5am or 5:15am. I didn't think much about it, but a bit later when I got up for my coffee our cook Karsong said he'd gone out to see what she was barking at and he saw the very distinct and unmistakable large grey shape of a snow leopard bounding up a glacial moraine not far from Base Camp. It was a pretty remarkable sight. I've seen snow leopard tracks in the Hongu Valley not far from here. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see what Karsong saw, but I think he knows what he's talking about when he said he is sure it was a snow leopard. A pretty interesting taste of the wild here at Everest Base Camp for us.

— Wally Berg, expedition leader