Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Haulbags under 5m of pure white snow

29th December 2008 Well, we haven't pulled on yet but we are ready to pounce when our haul bags appear again from their snowy tomb!! 3 days ago we hiked 3 haul bags with most of our gear and water and all our food to the base of the route, through thigh deep snow. We chopped a platform out of the edge of the glacier at the base of the route and tied the bags off to a cam. We then had to sit in our bivy cave that by then had a thick covering of snow throughout, for 2 days doing nothing....We went back up to the base of Riders yesterday with another load only to find that the haul bags were buried under the snow that had poured down the route! After waking up today to the most extreme wind we have seen so far and realising that if we have to sit out for another few days in bad weather before getting on the wall we're going to run out of fuel and breakfast. The fuel has gone quickly as we're melting snow for water and i just made a minor error in my breakfast calculations. So we left the route to shed some snow and reveal our bags for a couple of days! Then we will be ready to go!
31st December 2008 The guys have stocked up on supplies and are heading back out to their cave, hoping to find great (or at least better) weather to start climbing! 

1 comment:

Courtney Grimm said...

It was nice meeting you guys in the park (and at the airport, Jake). Good luck with the climb!