20 May

Paul and Stary decided to go off on a long trip to a mountain near the beginning of the ice cap. It's a prominent mountain visible from the campsite, sitting all alone on the glacier. The rest decided to do a group ascent of the one I was looking at from the summit the day before. Glen volunteered to pull a sledge so we all put most of our gear in it, ropes, harnesses, boots, crampons and axes.

Before the summit was a nunatak. This is a small hill which sticks up out of the glacier. We had not talked about doing it but everyone headed towards it anyway. I was ahead of Glen when we got to the base and could not be bothered waiting for him to arrive with my boots and crampons so I set off up it in my ski boots. They are OK to walk in, you just have to be careful of the big lug at the front and they are a bit heavy. The snow was hard and icy in places and I could not kick steps into it, so I went up the side on rocks. This slowed my down and some of the others caught me up and passed wearing crampons. Still I got to the top without a problem and without the hassle of changing boots. We called this Nunatak Dent, 1990 meters.

Gordon and Scott reaching the summit of Nunatak Dent. Behind center is Pap Bhan and behind that and left is Hvalross Fjord

After a quick descent we were off skiing again towards our main target. Petter had been impatient in camp and had set off before us. As a result he did not go up the nunatak and so was sitting at the bottom of the peak waiting for us. He had had a look up at the route and decided he wanted a rope for the top rocks. If it was not for that he would of been up it, claimed the top and off to some other peak somewhere. He never had much patience or group spirit. He also had strange ideas about crevasses. Quite often there is a crevasse at the bottom of a peak, where the peak meets the glacier. This mountain was no different. It had a very obvious crevasse with a bridge across it at one point. Rather than wait for us so he could join one of our ropes he skied across the bridge. Skis spread the weight over a larger area than walking, but we all thought it was still silly. Why take the risk when all he had to do was wait for the rest of us.

Once everyone was at the bottom of the slope we geared up and then left skis & ski boots at the bottom of the slope. We formed two ropes: Scott, Alan, Me and Gordon on one, with Glen, Petter and John on the other. The crevasse was safely crossed, with due care and attention, and then we went up a wide gully. At one point the snow sounded very hollow and our feet punched deep into the snow. We were all concerned about the sounds and so kept the rope tight while we crossed the area. Walking up the steep hard snow was difficult for me. I could not use the steps others had left simply because my ankle would not bend like that. I walked more duck legged with my bad foot actually pointing slightly downhill. At one really hard icy section Scott cut some steps in the snow for Gordon. Gordon was a bit nervous on that sort of terrain so steps helped his confidence. That led to the top of the gully which was a knife edge ridge formed from another gully coming up at 90 degrees. We traversed the ridge and then had to scramble over broken ledges up onto the main mountain ridge. Glen took his rope one way and Scott led off another.

The scramble up was quite interesting, scratching crampon points on little rock ledges at times and climbing over big boulders etc. It was sometime during this scramble I got a little frost nip in the skin on my finger tips. I had been warm climbing up the gully so had taken off my gloves to radiate some heat. During the scrambling I froze my finger tips to the rock and had to peel them off. It was not painful or anything. A couple of days later the skin tingled a little when it was cold and then about two weeks later the skin peeled off like it had been sun burned. The only other silly thing I did like this was when my hands where full I put a metal krab into my teeth and froze my tongue to it!

Once onto the main ridge the rest was an easy five minutes walk to the summit, 2150 metres high. This peak we called TWMC fjeld after the mountaineering club Glen is a member of, Tunbridge Wells MC, and Glen had been the first to the top of the peak. This was the second summit we classed as a peak, We had three classes, nunatak, top and peak. A nunatak is a small hill which sticks out from the glacier. A peak is the highest point on the mountain and a summit is a subsidiary top of a mountain.

Looking South East from TWMC Fjeld. The rock mountain behind the ridge is Sorte Tvillinge I think. Behind and right is Cheops.

Glen, Petter and John walking along the ridge when descending off TWMC Fjeld.

It was quite still on the top so we stopped for a while, had lunch, drank tea and took photos. Glen and his team then decided to traverse the full ridge and go off the far end where as our team went back down the way we had come. The scramble was more interesting on the way down, but OK. It was then straightforward to descend down the gully and back to the skis. We gave it an alpine grade of PD. The ski back to the camp was also without problem, a total round trip of something like 8km.

During the evening Petter came over to my tent while I was cooking tea and asked if he could share my tent. He said Alan was not being co-operative with him. I did not want to share with him. As I've said I like being on my own and my impression of Petter so far put me off the idea even more. I said talk to Scott, there may be a spare tent. You never know when a tent could get damaged and in a place like this and not having shelter would put you in a bad position. Petter went off to talk to Scott, but it turned out there was not a spare tent. Later in the even Alan came over for a quiet word. He apologized for Petter asking to share and then explained what had happened. Apparently Petter was expecting Alan to be his servant to some extent. Petter had gone off to do some other summit after we had climbed TWMC. He had gone off solo as well even after the letter from Paul. He had got back later than everyone else and had expected Alan to have cooked his food ready for him. We had no idea when he was going to be back, so Alan had cooked for himself. Given the temperature and the speed things cool down it seemed the sensible option to me. Also in the morning Petter had not contributed to making breakfast - he just expected Alan to give him breakfast in bed. I felt sorry for Alan.

Over the next week Alan had more run-ins with Petter and we all shared his opinion of Petter but there was little we could do about it. He had no group spirit, it was himself that mattered. He totally ignored the request not to go out solo, he seemed to think it did not apply to him. He always wanted to prove he was the best skier, which he was. He had to be at the front of the group. One night we set out some rough plans for the next few days. We decided to go out in small groups the next day and then the day after do a big summit as a group first ascent. Anyone with a group spirit would have left this big mountain alone and done it with the group. Not Petter. He passed that way the next day when out solo so went up it. We were all annoyed with him about this. He seemed oblivious to the problem. It was only on the last day or two he realized we were all giving him the cold shoulder.