Our aims of the week (decided as soon as we heard we were going together) 1. Good food, 2. Photography, 3. Climbing and Boarding.
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| This is the Pyramid tent that we slept in for the week, this photo was taken at the end of the week. You can see the snow built up around the tent. The skidoos and sledges were parked into wind and with a large gap between them to prevent drifting. |
Once we pitched camp at Trident East, we headed to Trident, the big peak that was behind our camp. We did a snowy/ice climb using crampons and ice axes to get to the top of Trident. We did the route in 4 pitches, on the first pitch my inner boot managed to come off and turn at a 90 degree angle to my shoe; that was an interesting start to the climb with Ali having to help me put my boot back on....tragic.
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| On the right is the anchor that I am attached to and then belayed Ali as he climbed. |
This is Ali and I almost at the top of what was an awesome climb. You can see our skidoos in the background, also our half unit sledge which has enough supplies including a tent, fuel and food to keep us safe for 3 weeks if we did get caught out by the weather.
The view was incredible!
A halo seen from our camp (you can see our poo tent on the left of the photo), This basically told us that there was a storm on it's way as these form when there are ice crystals in the atmosphere. That's exactly what we had on our second night in the tent....a massive storm that had Ali and both reaching for our biffy bags and SAT phone.
It is very warm in the tent with the tilly lamp and stove, this photo was taken after we had just got back from climbing so I was still warming up from the skidoo ride. A hot chocolate rum always helps matters.
The view from our tent was pretty spectacular too.
With the stove in the middle it separates the tent so you actually feel like you have your own space.
Food in the pyramid tents is pretty good. You can probably spot the nutella, marmite and happy cow cheese oh and biscuit browns - this was basically how we started each evening meal. We had man food a few nights (army boil food in a bag style), we also had some vacuum packed food from our chef Lewis.
PANCAKES! Yummy.
After two days of lie up, Ali and I decided to go big or go home. So we headed to the peak that is called M26. AS soon as we got there the wind picked up to over 15 knots; this did not stop us. We put our snowboards on our back and walked up to a bowl, as we turned around and put our boards on (well Ali had to put mine on as I couldn't quite clip it myself around the mountain boots..) we had not realised how steep it was,
So after toe edging it down on side I then managed to do a turn and link up to where Ali had stopped at the bottom. So much fun. It was so cold and windy on the way up that Ali's beard got a tad frozen.
We then decided we wanted to get out of the wind, so headed into a crevasse; as you do. We descended past one bridge, abseiling down about 40 m. The ice crystals projected so many different shades of blue. We then jumared back up from an impressive cavern; a very good work out.
We then had a bit more energy so went for a short walk around the wind scoop of M26.
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| So many layers! |
After such an exciting day we did some yoga in the tent to stretch out! haha
On our last day we went to N2 a peak to the East of our camp. WE walked around it's massive windscoop and then Ali decided to make a new route up to one of the peaks. It was my first time mixed climbing, it was so fun! Pulling your self up on your ice axe when it's only in a little hold it pretty exciting, also trying to get your crampons into good holds to support your weight was a fun mission on trying to find a good route up. Definitely going to have to head to Scotland when I get back home and carry on this mixed climbing malarkey.
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