On the positive side was the fact that despite the torrent of water and falling ice we had witnessed, stonefall had been infrequent, which suggested the thaw didn’t usually run quite as deep. We rationalised that with a much earlier start, a more typically hard overnight frost and colder air during the day, we were in with a chance of success. With sufficient food, we could also take a more relaxed approach and simply bivouac and wait when the sun came into force. If we were really lucky we thought, we could get cloudy cold weather!

Our food situation necessitated a return journey to Base Camp, 15km back up over the col, which gobbled up more precious time. We were getting much fitter though and had returned in three days. That left nine days until Zero Hour, when our driver would return to pick us up. Five days at most on the route, a day of rest, a day to walk out and then a day to pack up – perfect! Most definitely not. On such a long, difficult and tactically complex route, we were naive to think that such a hostile world would simply revolve around us.

>> A close up shot of the route up the South East Face See larger pic

Up until this point in the trip the weather had been reasonable. While the changes in temperature had ensured that the climbing conditions had changed almost daily on the higher peaks there had been few storms, and not much in the way of snow. But on our return trip to Advanced Base the snow began to fall. It was heavy at first, white out conditions, necessitating careful navigation over the col and down through the crevasses on its southern aspect. We pressed on under the assumption that the weather would clear up by the time we had rested. How wrong could we have been!

At Advanced Base the snow fell…and fell…and fell. The following morning I awoke to complete silence. “At last!” I thought, quickly doing the necessary arithmetic in my head to work out if we had sufficient time left for an attempt. But alas, the tent door was opened to reveal a solid wall of wind-packed snow blocking out all noise and light. We had quite literally been buried. I slumped back into the tent and resigned myself to yet another day of chapatti-making fun, perhaps some digging to relieve the boredom.

On the evening of the 15th August the snow stopped. We had exactly five full days before were due to leave. It would take at least a full day to dig the tent out, return to Base, and pack everything up in time to leave, and there was no chance of setting foot on a route until two metres of fresh snow had been given the chance to settle down.

Next morning we sat outside the tent and watched gargantuan avalanches pouring down in all shapes and sizes and on all aspects around us. It certainly knows how to snow in the Kokshall Too. One particular slide, draining the gully immediately to the left of our own intended route, created a snow cloud fully a quarter the height of the face itself, prompting Es to quiver “Er…you don’t think that’s big enough to come over here do you…”. Fortunately it wasn’t (we subsequently found the col over which we approached obliterated by blocks the size of caravans).

>> Approaching the first real difficulty - a 250m ice smear of pure ice climbing up to Scottish VII See larger pic

If the weather held out, we’d have one last chance. We knew three days wasn’t likely to be enough but we had become obsessed. Seeing a photograph of this line is one thing but it’s another entirely to live and breathe in its shadow for a week or more - compulsive climbing at its best. Our tactics had changed slightly, we would now leave camp late evening and climb as far as possible in the dark, aiming at the very least to gain the start of the ice smear in the back of the cul-de-sac. We hoped to clear this just as the sun appeared, leaving what looked like a couple of easier rope lengths to a large snow ledge on the left. From there, we could either fuel up and keep going or, if the sun was again causing us problems, take a bivouac and then continue very early the following day.