This evening I am at Camp 1 (at 5,500m, or 18,000 ft). One of only two climbers on the mountain. The weather at Base camp has been consistently light to heavy rain. I think that has kept most teams off the mountain and holed up at Base camp. But occasional windows through the bad weather had me convinced that clear skies were not too far above. Tonight I am at Camp 1, and I am enjoying great weather and my first clear views of Manaslu! Last time I checked in I was in Jagat. I've been pushing hard with little rest. My gut tells me the summit window will come early and I want to be ready for it. The current weather forecast shows light snow for the next couple of days, then a heavy fall 2-3 days from now -- then another clear weather window. But weather forecasts more than a day or so out in the Himalaya are very suspect, so I depend more on the reality on the ground each day. The route from base camp to Camp 1 travels up a heavily crevassed glacier. A solo fall would mean serious trouble; there are simply too many of the seemingly bottomless black holes to take this traverse lightly. So the route to Camp 1 required careful thought and planning as a solo climber. Happily I can report no major mishaps or surprises -- thanks to that good plan, and extremely careful execution. Tomorrow I will explore the route to Camp 2 and prepare a good camp here at Camp 1. Recent snow has some areas of the mountain unstable, as several natural releases made plainly evident today. So I'll stick my neck out only so far on my exploration of the route to Camp 2 (at 6,300m, or 20,700 ft) over the next couple of days. Best regards from snowy Nepal, RMI Guide Alex Barber