Gasherbrum IV Attempt. Our team consisted of Andy Perkins, Andy Cave, Kate Phillips, Chris Flewitt, Brendan Murphy and me as leader. We reached Base Camp on the South Gasherbrum Glacier on June 25. Base Camp and Camp I at 6000 meters were shared with multiple Gasherbrum I and II teams. Our original intention had been to attempt the south ridge, tried by British expeditions in 1986 and 1988, but inspection showed that the American south-face, south-ridge line of 1992 was more feasible. We established Camp II at 6500 meters on July 3. Unfortunately, from then on the weather was continuously unsettled with some heavy storms. Although only three-and-a-half days of actual climbing were required to reach the ridge at 7300 meters, this effort was spread out over the next 30 days. On their sixth foray, Kate Phillips and Brendan Murphy reached the high point of 7300 meters on August 1 but very high winds prevented their camping at that height. They confirmed that the ridge section above there as far as the headwall at 7600 meters was quite straightforward, but the headwall looked hard with no obvious weakness. On August 2, storms rolled in and so we cleared the camps and left Base Camp on August 5.

Andrew Macnae, Alpine Climbing Group