After a late start, we continue our ankle-twisting plod up the rubbly glacier. The path winds around crevasses and cliffs and runs at times worryingly close to the vertical crags at the valley side.

We arrive at another collection of camping spots for lunch, from where we can see the route up the pass. Once again, the map is highly optimistic in its route. There is no way to scale the rounded crags where the path is marked, nor the precarious ice fall further up.

We continue to climb, right up to the flattish top of the glacier. From here, a shallow scree slope leads up to a rocky rib projecting from the valley side. It's hard going up both the loose material and the rock, and there are a few tricky moves that the porters required assistance to complete. The trail meanders over the horizon and up the shoulder, steep and perilous, before giving way without warning to a camping area on the rib, some 160m above the glacier.

Avalanche on Bigphere Go Photo (c) Tom Padgham 1998

Marked with a little stupa (monument), a collection of tent spots cling impressively to the top of the shoulder. The main face is covered with groaning ice and rockfall, particularly in a spot Alan had just vacated.

However, there is no sign of where the trail goes next, or how we are to climb the valley side. Pasang points out an icy rake partly hidden by another rib, but it does not look too convincing. While we are looking, there is a great thundering noise from the mountain Bigphera Go, just above the glacier. A large serac has detached itself and we are treated to the impressive and ominous sight of a large avalanche plunging down less than a mile from the site.