22 May

After the long day before I wanted an easier day next. There was a prominent triangular peak down the glacier which formed the left wall when the glacier descended steeper. This was our next objective and the whole group decided to do it.

Looking down the Glacier to Pap Bhan, the triangular peak on the right, and Hvalross behind to the left

The rocky summit of Pap Bhan with Scott and Paul on the Summit.

I didn't fancy the descent down the glacier again. Well I didn't fancy the accent back up really, so I persuaded Paul to do the west ridge. This looked steep and with a rock band near the top, but it looked as if it would go. The advantage would be that there was no need to descend down the glacier. The rest skied straight passed us and went down the glacier, wanting to take the easier east flank. Paul sprinted up the ridge leaving me behind to plod up at my own pace. Most of it was boulders and snow, enough snow to allow me to keep off the boulders most of the time which I was thankful of. From the bottom it looked like we could traverse around the rock band to the east side, but this turned out not to be possible. Instead we had to scramble up the rock. It seems the steeper the rock is, the more solid it is. In this case it was a number of steep steps. Each step top was covered in loose boulders and scree, but the rock of each step itself was OK so long as you kicked each hold to make sure it was firmly attached. The top turned out to be a false top. It was about a metre lower than the real top and separated from it by a 3 meter knife edge ridge. A real knife edge in this case. There was no way I was going to walk along it, it was a boot width wide with long drops down each side. With two working ankles I would have walked across, but my balance is not so good now. If I stand on my right leg I fall over. So I took another approach - sit with one leg either side and shuffle along!

Paul was the first to the top by about two minutes before Scott appeared up the other side. The others arrived in dribs and drabs. It was the first day when it was really pleasant on a summit. It was warm, no windproof required, just a fleece and great for getting frazzled in the sun. Everyone sat around for 30 minutes eating lunch and taking the mick out of Stary who was feeling old and past it. This was about the only time we could do this - sit around as a group and chat, take the mick and have a good social time like you would normally have in the pub afterwards. The rest of the time it was too cold to sit around talking. This was one disappointment with the trip. Stary said that normally on Greenlandic trips it was warmer during the day and there was much more of a social atmosphere, but this far north it was just too cold. What we needed was a big tarp we could of used to cover a big hole dug into the snow to make a social meeting and cooking area.

There were four GPS's and two aneroid barometers/altimeters all of which gave different heights, with up to 30 metres difference. In the end it was declared to be 2025 meters high and given the name Pap Bhan. Our route was given an alpine grade of PD.

From here the others wanted to do another big looking peak which went directly up from where the east flank of Pap Bhan met the glacier. It was an initially steep ascent of a boulder scree onto a plateau and then a gradual ascent over more boulders to the summit about 1km away. Paul lead the descent down the west flank at a cracking pace, leaving me to trail along at the back. When I was half way down Pap Bhan, Paul was up onto the plateau. I was finding the boulders hard going and didn't fancy going up the next summit with the rest. It was going to take too long. The scrambling up the rock band and the knife edge ridge was sufficient for me to say I had had a good day. The other mountain just looked like a plod over horrible boulders. When I reached the low point Alan offered me his ski poles to help me get up the next mountain. I had left mine with the skis since it's not easy to scramble with long, two piece, poles sticking out of your sac. I declined the offer saying I was not interesting in going up and would walk back to my skis and go back to camp. I traversed around the side of the mountain losing as little height as possible and then ascended up to the start of the west ridge. It was much easier on foot than on skis going up the glacier. Skis are great in soft snow or shallow angles, but on hard snow on a moderate angle plain old boots are better. Back at the west ridge I popped up a nunatak. It was only 40 meters of ascent from the skis up its east ridge but on its other three sides the ground drops away alot so making it look a lot bigger. This was my second first ascent of a minor bump and another cairn to my name. Since it was right under Pap Bhan it was called Pap Bhan Nunatak and I estimated it's height as 1845m, 35 meters below the camp site!

Skiing back alone was strange. No one ahead to follow and the campsite out of sight on the crown off the glacier above. This did not worry me. I knew it lay on the straight line between the Nunatak we had done on the second day and a prominent col between the peak we climbed on the first night and the peak Paul and Stary had not reached the summit of. What I did not know was how well you could hide a campsite amongst all the open space of a glacier. I skied in roughly the right direction expecting to see the campsite quite quickly. Once I had it in sight it would be easy. I skied on and on and the campsite did not come into sight. I just about reached the line between the two prominent features and could still not see the camp site. I could see all the way down to the col so I knew it was not that direction, so I turned up the hill and followed the line towards the distant Nunatak. Id been skiing for nearly 45 minutes before I saw something dark sticking up and five minutes later I was in camp. We had pitched the camp on the crown of the slope where it was impossible to see it from below until you were nearly on top of it. Trying to find it in bad visibility without navigational aids would be nearly impossible.

As expected I was first back and so made myself a cup of tea and then put everyone else's stove on ready for when they got back. Paul was next back and then quickly followed by Scott. The rest turned up one by one except Petter who had gone off on his own again. The second summit of the day, which I had not done, was named Hvalross Fjeld and is 2170m in height. This was the summit we had decided to do as a group and the Petter had done it on his own the day before, so that days ascents were second ascents.