IT was the small hours of the morning, and Qasim Rafique couldn't sleep. Somewhere in the distant darkness lay Mount Everest, the world's highest peak.

"A lot of the team members had crashed out, but I was still wide awake and outside my tent," says Rafique.

"I'd phoned my wife on a GPS satellite phone for a minute. We were so happy just to speak.

"Then I saw a group of Nepalese shepherds sitting there, having a cup of tea round a wee fire, even though the conditions were below zero and it was the middle of the night.

"I huddled with them for a couple of hours," says Qasim, "but it felt as if it was a lifetime.

"We were so high up that everything looked different," says the 30-year-old dad of three from the West End.

"The moon looked different, the stars looked different, and you were overshadowed by the vast mountains."

The encounter came near the end of an ambitious three-week trip to the Himalayas, during which Qasim and the rest of the 40-strong expedition reached Everest base-camp, 5303m (17,400ft) above sea-level.

Though the trip was for charity - it raised £130,000 for the British Heart Foundation - this was no walk in the park.

At the time of that phone call back to Glasgow, Qasim says: "It had been a hard slog. People from our team had been rescued by helicopter and we didn't know whether we were going to make it or come back. No wonder I was so happy to speak to my wife."

Every moment of the trip, he says, is etched on his memory.

Qasim has been mesmerised by Everest since the age of 12, when he bought a print of the mountain at the St Enoch Centre.

"I always used to say I'd love to climb Everest one day. When the chance came up to go there, I couldn't turn it down."

Qasim took part in the trip in memory of his mother, Asphia, who died of a heart attack seven years ago, aged just 44.

"I'd done a lot of climbing in Scotland. I've done all the Munros but nothing to this extent. I'm in good physical shape, but this was by far the toughest thing I have ever done."

But it was also, he adds, "a fantastic experience".

Group members were all aware of the risks that Everest poses for even the most experienced climber. Many people have died lonely deaths in pursuit of this particular dream.

"There are 200 bodies on the mountain," says Qasim. "But there isn't a thing you can do about them, because they are at such high altitude - with every few steps you had to stop and take several deep breaths. And to cover even a short distance would take five or six hours.

"The higher you go in the Himalayas, the less oxygen there is, and our whole group suffered altitude problems at some point.

"Three of our team had to be air-lifted off the mountain.

"Descent is the only cure. We had two doctors with us, both experts in altitude sickness, and at 3500m (11,500ft) one of them suffered pulmonary edema, affecting his lungs, and had to be rushed down. He's fine now.

"I was generally fine but it was at a place called Pheriche that I suffered from altitude sickness. I thought that was it.

"I told the other doctor I thought I'd have to be taken down, or at least be put into an inflatable altitude chamber that our sherpas had brought. But I was able to make a recovery."

There was a second problem facing the party, but not one you'd find in any medical textbook.

A Chinese group was carrying the Olympic torch to the 8850m (29,035ft) summit of Everest - and no effort was spared to prevent any embarrassing pro-Tibet, anti-Chinese protests on the mountains.

A prolonged ban by the Nepalese government meant that, for at least two months, hundreds of frustrated climbers could get no further than Camp 3 - the highest camp, but still very far from the summit.

"There were 72 expeditions waiting to go up, including 50 guys from the Indian Army. And all the expeditions had small armies of Sherpas as well.

"We had 150 sherpas from Kathmandu alone - they were responsible for everything from catering to leading the yaks that ferried our supplies to base camp.

WHILE the ban was in force, there was just so much human traffic on Everest." A third problem were the treacherous temperatures.

"You can get -50 when the wind-chill hits, within seconds. If any part of your skin is exposed, it's dead - instant frostbite. That is why there is such a high chance of death there.

"So you have to cope with the altitude, and the weather, and the sheer physical and mental stress of trying to climb.

"But there's something about Everest that just draws you to it.

"There are climbers who are willing to give up their lives just for the sake of reaching the summit.

"The environment is so beautiful, the scenery so breathtaking, that it almost takes you away."

Qasim and his party were in tears when told of one recent climber who had reached the summit but couldn't get down. His base camp patched him through to his wife for a final 20-minute conversation.

"She was expecting their child," says Qasim. "During the call they decided on a name. He said, Tell my child this was what I wanted to do.'"

Qasim is the son of Sohail Solly' Rafique, the founder of Solly's African Village supermarket in Great Western Road and works at GTI marketing in the South Side.

He was accompained by friend Aamar Arshad, 29, on the trip and accepts that the Himalayas, and Everest, are now in his blood.

"We were all happy to come back to our families, but when we landed at Heathrow, everybody else at the airport was bustling to and fro, and we just sat there, looking lost."

As far as the Himalayas are concerned, Qasim cannot wait to go back to the high peaks.