For more information and climbing notes on Yalung Ri, see Alan's Mountaineering Report

It's time for our first climb of the expedition - an ascent of the nearby Yalung Ri (5630m). We'd planned to climb as a rope of three, but Pasang wants to come with us too.

It doesn't take long to have breakfast and get ready. The route follows some easy rocky ridges before dropping down to meet the glacier below an imposing crag. The 'normal' route skirts around the (true) left of the glacier, but the slope looks likely to give us sore ankles and possibly invites rock fall.

Kami Sherpa on Yalung Ri Photo (c) Tom Padgham 1998

Instead, Alan leads straight up the glacier which is not steep, but gets progressively more cravassed as we go on. The going is slow, and on reaching the crags on the far side we are fairly exhausted. From here a snowy ridge, steep in places, leads to the (snow) summit.

This in incredibly hard going. Pasang takes the lead, but despite his best efforts to drag us up he has to stop every fifty yards for a breather. On reaching the summit, I feel terrible but soon start to recover. We have an excellent view of the surrounding mountains, particularly Chukyima and Ramdung.

The Ramdung glacier is in a horrible state, so we write off any attempt from the Yalung La pass, the 'normal' route recommended by O'Conner and others. While we eat lunch and admire the scenery, two enormous crows appear, with a huge yellow-headed bird of prey - a Lammergeier - in hot pursuit. We are treated to some stunning aerial acrobatics and even manage to capture it on film.

We descend by the normal route around the left bank of the glacier to avoid crevasses and arrive uneventfully at the misty campsite where the other three members have recently appeared with another two tents. During dinner, the weather worsens, just as the lama predicted, and it starts to snow.