In saying that this sort of weather was harmless, I am not denying that it hindered our operations; but from the point of view merely of the climber it was remarkably innocuous. A case in point is our ascent of Ri-ring. As we were nearing the summit a thunderstorm gathered to the North and dark clouds came up on every hand, threatening a violent disturbance. I have related in an earlier chapter how we hurried down, expecting at the least a cold unpleasant wind and some nasty snow showers; but the air remained calm and the temperature warm and such grains of snow as fell were hardly remarked in our flight. A more disagreeable experience was our first journey to the col from which we afterwards looked into the West Cwm of Everest; we reached the pass in the teeth of a wind which drove the snow into our faces; but the weather had no real sting, and the wind, though cold, seemed to touch us lightly. Wind, in fact, was never an enemy to be feared during the whole period of the monsoon, and snowstorms, though they prevented more than one expedition, never turned us back. The delays in our reconnaissance caused by bad weather were of course considerable; we were forced to push our camps higher than would have otherwise been necessary, and often found ourselves hurrying after a start before dawn in a desperate race with the clouds to reach a view-point before the view had disappeared. And the precipitation of snow on the glaciers forced us invariably to wear snow-shoes on neve, and consequently limited the numbers in our parties. I have already alluded to a more serious snowfall which took place from July 20 to 25. Another occurred during the first days of August and another again on August 20 and 21, when snow came down below 16,000 feet. In September, towards the end of the monsoon, the weather was more monotonously malicious and the snowfall tended to be heavier; I find two heavy falls noted particularly in my diary. But on the whole it was the habit of snow to fall lightly. It is remarkable, when one calls to mind such a big snowfall as may occur during the climbing season in the Alps before the weather is resolved to be fine, how little snow by comparison fell on any one day in the region of Mount Everest. And perhaps in the end the slopes were more laden by the smaller precipitations which deposited a daily accretion.