A few pictures from Afghanistan

I'm staying up late in Dushanbe so I'll sleep better on the flights home... 10pm now, taxi at 2am, flight at 5am, sleeper to Scotland tomorrow. Here are a few pics to whet your appetites of our time in Afghanistan.

This is Koh e Iskander, a little over 5500m high and our first major summit of the trip...

...as seen from the site of this pic. Camp one at the end of a brutal wade up the glacier. It would have been worse without the loan of 2 pairs of snowshoes from the Anglo-American Noshaq trip- cheers guys! Here Neal battles with deep, wet avalanche prone snow on the way up Koh e Alexander below the rock band...

... and me on the summit more than a little concerned about the descent

This is Neal looking for a way through the cornice on 'the Yaks back' on our way to Koh e Khat... Koh e Khat means Peak of the donkey. We called it that because the summit was composed of 2 towers like donkeys' ears. Here Neal steps gingerly down between the first and second towers (naturally we only discovered the second one was higher after we climbed the first)...

And abseiling off of the higher tower...

And here he is on part of the steep 1000m descent to the valley below...
Thoughts of Jane and Sandy at home on Koh e Khat
As an aside those of you who know me may be aware that I don't drink tea or coffee- except when I have to. But on this trip I've consumed about 5000l of cher choi (milk tea) and choi sio (black tea) and not a little choi subzi (green tea) in the last month... and this pictures shows how most of it was brewed- yakpat power!