Karakoram Range, Pakistan 2011

The day was about to begin and I couldn't sleep - too strung out on excitement to finally be here. I decided to get out of the tent and go for a walk above camp.

After three days of gray drizzle we were getting a little break. The clouds were vacillating, and the morning sun had found a small hole in the clouds to shine through. It cast a beam of light across the glacier which slowly crept along the formations lying across the way.

I was kind of pinching myself - "is this really happening?" and yes, it was. Slowly the beam crept across the granite faces until settling on Nameless Tower...