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weather appears to be holding, and we wake up to still winds and no snow. The disadvantage of the later start is there is now pressure on us to get through the icefall before the sun gets too high and starts melting the seracs and snow bridges.
    I share a rope with Phil and Ian, and they're miles quicker than I am. The climb to Camp 1 is supposed to take up to eight hours but Phil, who is leading our rope, manages to get us there in just six. As we weave between seracs and crevasses Gasherbrums II, III and IV all hove into view one by one and the scenery is stunning, but my concentration is on putting one foot in front of the other and mouthing obscenities towards the top of the climb as I struggle more and more.
    Phil crouches with Gasherbrum II behind
     
    We reach Camp 1, underneath the south face of Gasherbrum II, at 11am. I'm absolutely exhausted, and lie down in the snow in front of our tents, already erected by the Sherpa team, doing my Darth Vader impression. It probably takes about an hour before I'm breathing normally again. The others all seem to be alright, which is a good sign. For them, at least. Fortunately I'm sharing a tent with Ian, and he's quite happy to brew up copious quantities of coffee while I recover. I unpack my Thermarest, sleeping bag and the bag of food that I've carried up, and spend the majority of the afternoon crashed out in the tent, though I do make a short foray outside to admire the view, which is one of the most spectacular I've ever seen.
    The Gasherbrum Cwm is a high horseshoe surrounded by the seven Gasherbrum peaks, ranging in height between 7000 and 8000 metres. Every single one of them is spectacular, and our first objective, G2, now rises a little over 2000 metres above us. The first half of it looks steep and daunting up a steep snow ridge, though higher up the final summit section looks a little easier. Thankfully we have our fantastic Sherpa team with us, who head up towards Camp 2 in the afternoon to fix the route with ropes while we vedge in our tents.

15. An unfortunate and unusual case of frostbite
     
Thursday 25 June, 2009 – Gasherbrum Base Camp, Pakistan
     
    I wake up at 5am this morning with a bit of a headache, probably caused by dehydration rather than altitude. Camp 1 is at 5910m, and as well as having spent several nights at 5000m in Base Camp, I've also been higher than this in the last month and a half while climbing in Nepal, so my acclimatisation should be good.
    Rather than waking up an hour earlier to begin the time-consuming process of boiling water for breakfast, we agreed last night that we'd simply wake up this morning, pack our things and descend straight back to Base Camp for breakfast. We left the gas canister in the porch of our tent overnight, so it would probably be too frozen up to light in any case.
    We leave Camp 1 at 6am, and the descent takes just 2½ hours. Going down is easy, but I'd forgotten how much up and down there was over the ridges and folds of the icefall just above Base Camp, and it's frustrating having to do so much climbing when I'm still tired after yesterday's ascent. I keep feeling the rope slacken behind me, and can tell Ian's itching to descend faster, so I shout to Phil in front that he can quicken the pace if he wants. It's a relief to find that he's also a little tired, however, and he keeps up a regular pace all the way down.
    Back at Base Camp, our kitchen crew of Ashad, Ehshan and Shezad have waited for our arrival before preparing breakfast, and it's good to get down eggs and chapattis after the freeze dried and snack foods we've been chomping on at Camp 1.
    At lunch Arian tells us an extraordinary story about Ali, an Iranian climber who trekked in with us from Askole.
    “I passed him yesterday on the way up to Camp 1 and asked how he was. ‘I don't feel so good,' he said, pointing to his abdomen. ‘You have stomach ache?' I asked, but he pointed lower down. Eventually I realise that he's pointing at his dick, and