Its that time again. Sitting in the Bangkok airport awaiting my connection to Kathmandu, I finally have time to write a quick despatch. Its the post monsoon season and I’m heading back to the hills.

After putting off the expedition last season, I am now returning to the Himalaya to launch that attempt on Shishapangma. My team is Neil Ward from Wales with whom I climbed on Makalu in 2008 and in Tibet in 2007, and Kinga Baranowska from Poland. Kinga has six 8000ers under her belt.

If all goes well, we’ll obtain our climbing permit in a couple of days, cross the border into Tibet and commence the journey to basecamp. I hope to hit abc around the 16th of September. Climbing should commence immediately and with luck we’ll launch our summit attempt in early October. If all goes well…

We are really looking forward to getting onto the mountain.

Next despatch will probably be from basecamp unless we hit a hurdle with the permit.