A Bradford mountaineer has successfully climbed his third unconquered peak.

But explorer Titch Kavanagh's expedition was nearly ruined by atrocious weather conditions.

Titch and his team had to endure days of freezing snowstorms, avalanches and electrical storms on the trip to a remote part of China.

The 40-year-old, of Heaton, was part of a group which went on a six-week expedition to climb the little-known Gongga E, in the Sichuan Province in south west China.

Although they found the unclimbed 6,618 metre mountain, which is also known as Mount Edgar, their ascent was halted by heavy snow, avalanches and dehydration.

But despite not conquering their chosen peak, Titch and some of the group successfully climbed a neighbouring 5,400 metre route and carried out extensive explorations of the previously unconquered mountain.

"The trip wasn't a failure but we had to weigh up the risks of carrying on with the climb up Gongga E in dangerous conditions," said Titch, a former community development worker.

The group - including Angela Benham, of Leicester, Andy Phillips, of Nottingham, and Chris Drinkwater, of Littleborough - flew from Heathrow to Bejing and on to the Sichuan capital Chengdu where they met their Chinese guide Lenny, and then travelled by jeep to Moxi.

From there the team headed towards the mountain range, dubbed the Alps of Tibet, to set up a base camp.

They spent a few days setting up a boulder camp further up the mountain and moving equipment up to the second camp to acclimatise themselves.

But five days of heavy, constant snow led to poor visibility and the group was forced to sit in their tents and wait for it to clear.

Finally the three men attempted the climb but after a day of avalanches they decided to stop.

Angela chose to stay at base camp because she felt ill.

"We were up against huge tower blocks of ice, which were particularly steep and nasty, and we had to work out ways to negotiate them on our way up," said Titch.

"It was pretty treacherous and when we got up to 4,400 metres we came up against a serac barrier - a huge glacier - which was too dangerous to climb.

"We were tired, dehydrated and all we could see ahead was more avalanches and we decided we wouldn't risk it."

So they turned their attentions to climbing a neighbouring couloir (a gully up the side of a mountain) which they completed in eight hours the following day.

"When we got to the top we were absolutely exhausted and decided the best thing to do was make our way back down," said Titch.

"We had done all we could in the circumstances and we made the right choice."

On their descent they were hit by a huge avalanche of massive rocks of snow.

"We dug about six inches into a gully and sat in our tent with our hard hats on waiting for it to pass," said Titch.

"It was frightening as we could hear the big rocks hitting the tent and later we found the holes they'd made."

Titch has now compiled details of the climb, including various photographs, for the British Mountaineering Council and the Mount Everest Foundation, which will help other explorers and mountain climbers when visiting the region.