The mountains of the Karakoram are amongst the most spectacular in the world and made up towering granite spires, rock walls and huge pyramids of ice that sprout out of the glacial wilderness of northern Pakistan.

With eight separate ridges and over a dozen subsidiary summits, Masherbrum (7821m) must lay claim to be the biggest mountain in the world. The mountain is huge and complex with an icefall on its south west side that is almost five kilometres across.