Today wasn't much fun at all and at times I came perilously close to a severe sense of humour failure. It snowed heavily during the night. 'Oh well', I thought, as I trudged through the fresh snow, 'at least the ice is pretty good'. Ten minutes later I came across the first lead (see pic). 'Oh well', I thought, as I skied east looking for a point to cross, 'at least the sun's shining'. Seconds later, a huge bank of cloud rolled in and it started snowing again - flakes so big that I'm sure I could have bagged them up and sold them as Christmas decorations.
I spent the next nine hours skiing through a whiteout. Stumbling is perhaps a better word - there is no shadow, no contrast and no perspective. The towering cathedral of ice you take a bearing on turns out to be a knee-high pile, the tiny ledge you're about to step off turns out to be a six foot vertical drop and the nice flat ice you're skiing towards turns out to be a wall of drifted snow. The fresh snow makes things interesting as well, by hiding things I'm quite interested in, like thin ice, or bear footprints. Ho hum.
It could have been a lot worse, though. I wound my way through some really smashed up areas of pack ice with dozens and dozens of frozen leads. A few degrees warmer and I dread to think what it might have been like...
Today is dedicated is to the American mountaineer Carlos Buhler, someone that knows all about pushing on through tough conditions. I met him a while back and we hit it off straight away. His achievements as a climber are astounding, yet he's the most modest, down to earth guy you could hope to meet, and someone I feel honoured to call a friend.
A big hi to a few people that might be reading - Tim Reeve, Bear, Shara & Jessie Grylls, Neil Laughton and Ginge Fullen.
Dispatches: Into the mist... - Monday, 3rd May 2004
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