Mount Everest, Attempt. Our expedition, “Comarques de Girona-Everest 1996,” was composed of seven members, all of them from Girona (Catalonia, Spain): Anna Agusti, Quico Campos, Jordi Tosas, Francesc Maso, Carles Figueras, Salvador Coll and Joan Cardona. While the rest of the groups were following the normal route (East Rongbuk Glacier) to the eastern slope of the North Col, our expedition was alone on the West Rongbuk Glacier. We didn't have high altitude porters or oxygen.

On April 17 we established Base Camp at the foot of Changtse behind the West Rongbuk Glacier at about 5500 meters. Camp I was at 5800 meters under Chang Changtse La. At this point, between Camp I and the western wall of the North Col, we moved on skis, which gave us more security over the broken and dangerous glacier between Everest and Changtse and allowed us to move faster when we were descending. We set up Camp II at 6400 meters at the foot of the North Col. We then climbed the wall, following a line between the Shipton and Tilman route of 1938 and the Australian route of 1985. We found three big crevasses and a very steep section with hard ice (6070°). Our Camp III was on the North Col with the rest of the expeditions. On May 10 and May 20 we reached Camp IV at about 7800 meters on the north ridge, but didn’t continue, mainly because of the strong wind. We left Base Camp on May 24.

Joan Cardona, Spain