Geoff departed Camp 1 early descending to Basecamp in 4 1/2 hours. The 2 HAP's load carried to Camp 1 whilst the remainder of the team had a rest day at Camp 1. Camp 1 is a mini city with nearly 40 tents with most of the teams attempting nearby Gasherbrum 2. This made for a very social day interacting with other climbers.

Mick V, Geoff & Mick P left Camp 1 at 5am for a load carry to Camp 2 at 6,450m on the Gasherbrum La. Other teams waited for the Aussies to break trail, then were in quick pursuit. Breaking trail was hard work with trio arriving at Camp 2 at 12 o clock, a long 7 hour haul. They setup one tent, dropped a load and returned to Camp 1 in 2 hours.  read more »

Dawn cleared with the sad news of an Austrian woman dying of a heart attack at Basecamp. Cookie, Henry, Mick P, James, Damien, Zac & Lesley along with 2 high High Altitude Porters (HAP's) relocated to Interim Camp at 5,450m in the middle of the South Gasherbrum Glacier in order to acclimatize.

In the scorching heat of the day, Cookie, Henry, Mick P and the HAP’s did a load carry to Camp 1.

Mick P stayed at Camp 1 whilst Cookie and Henry returned to Interim Camp and the two HAP's returned to Basecamp for a well earned rest.  read more »

The rest of the team planned to follow to Interim Camp to spend a night but an overnight change in the weather with heavy snowfall put an end to that. A depressing day followed with more snowfalls however by late afternoon the team cheered up at Basecamp with an entourage of three female climbers (Katherine Carlyle and Mary Adams from Australia and Tia from Scotland) visiting Leslie.
By early evening the clouds cleared completely. So the 4th of July should see the team go up for a 2 day acclimatisation trip.

Mick V, Geoff, Chris and Mick Parker ventured into the icefall arriving at interim camp in 3 hours minus Mick Parker who returned to Basecamp.

The trio setup another tent and at 1 pm climbed to 5900m taking around 4 hours. Two tents were setup thereby establishing Camp 1. Meanwhile back at Basecamp the Project Himalaya Team lead by Jamie McGuiness arrived. Jamie is well known in the Army Alpine Association (AAA) and provided logistics for the AAA 2004 Cho Oyu Expedition.

Finally clear nights saw all 10 climbers and 2 high altitude porters make our first foray into the South Gasherbrum glacier icefall, departing Basecamp at 5:30 a.m. The icefall was an amazing place creaking and groaning as we weaved our way around countless seracs, ice blocks. We had to jump across many deep crevasses. On the top of the icefall the glacier flattened out but the crevasses were even wider and deeper. One tent was setup at 5550 metres. This camp will be an interim camp until we are able to acclimatise and then we will use camp 1 as our main camp.  read more »

Again another early morning rise but continuing snowfall kept us at Basecamp for another frustrating day. Zac visited the Czech expedition to G1. They had just placed Camp 2 on the Gasherbrum La. As they were a week ahead of our team we agreed to give them 240 metres of fixed rope so they could start fixing the route to Camp 3 in the Japanese Couloir.

Our plans to do our first sojourn into the icefall were thwarted by a change in the weather. We were up at 4 a.m. but fresh falling snow put an end to any plans to go up. Our two trekkers Paul and Steve bid us farewell as they headed
back down to Concordia for their side trip to Broad Peak and K2 Basecamp. We also farewelled our guide Kushlin and Korin who were escorting our two trekkers back to Skardu.

Our second full day at Basecamp was spent becoming familiar with our emergency and safety equipment.
One practice session involved setting up the portable altitude chamber a large PVC tube that can be pumped up to a higher air pressure. Leslie volunteered as the patient and was quickly transported back to an altitude of 3000m the same as our starting point. The short journey to 3000 metres eliminated Leslie’s headache. Other sessions included avalanche rescue, crevasse rescue and learning to use our new
Jetboil stoves.

The sleep in till 8:30 am was a real treat after a week of 4 am starts. It was beautiful warm and sunny day in Basecamp and we got out first close up view of Gasherbrum 1 a massive mountain directly in front of our camp. The day was spent organising our gear, washing clothing and improving our tent sites.

Zac met with the Chinese/Tibetan expedition leader as they are on the same route but a week ahead of us. They have already established Camp 1 and are about to make the route to Camp 2.

They will be fixing rope in the Japanese Couloir making our job easier.