23 May

We planned a big group outing the next day so some decided to take a rest day and I along with Glen and John had an easier day making third ascents of the summits Paul and Stary had made after their failed attempt on the third day. These summits had been called Mid-Gletscher and Trekanten. At the name implies, Mid-Gletscher is in the middle of the glacier where it descends down to join the other glaciers. We had passed by its side a number of times so getting to it was not a problem.

Mid-Gletscher from the summit of Pap Bhan. We climbed the other side onto the right and so to the summit.

Looking down the North West Ridge at Glen coming up.

Glen and John on the summit of Mid-Gletscher.

It also gave us chance to look at some of the other peaks around and about to find possible weaknesses to get up. We had done all the easier peaks around the campsite and the ones that remained looked harder. Generally the rock is bad, loose and broken, so you have to avoid rock that requires scrambling or climbing. Easy angled boulder slopes you could walk on were OK since they generally didn't move much and the consequence of them moving was not severe. When scrambling or climbing having the rock break from under you is much more dangerous and generally means a fall. We were looking for ridges up to summits which did not have rock wall barriers. Unfortunately, all the remaining peaks in the area seemed to require a wall to be climbed somewhere, or worse still a narrow looking connecting ridge with lots of pinnacles. From what we could see these connecting ridges were narrow and would require all the pinnacles to be climbed either over the top or around the side. What remained in the area did not look so good. If we had not been delayed we would have probably decided to move camp the day after next. There was another area on our aerial photo which had more mountains with snow ascents. However this would take two days, one to more camp and another to move back ready to be picked up by plane. With the few remaining days we decided it was not worth it and instead we would have to ski further to get to mountains that did look climbable.

The ski descent down the crescent of snow to the glacier was fun. After all the skiing along glaciers my balance was improving and my downhill skiing was benefiting from the extra balance. Then we had to cross some water ice on the glacier. It was a flip the coin type of decision. Either go across the water ice and hope not to fall over, or go around which would take much longer. John and Glen went around, but since I was behind after taking longer walking down off the mountain I decided to ski across. There were patches of snow on the ice which was very useful. They are places to rest and turn since its nearly impossible to stop on the ice or to make turns. You have to concentrate on not falling over because you know its going to be a hard landing and impossible to stand up again. So its a case of skittering across the ice from snow patch to snow patch. Once off the ice it was back to normal snow and an ascent to a snow col where a rocky ridge leads to the summit of Trekanten. This was the first time I saw anything living other than the nine of us. There was some lichen on one of the rocks and by it a little free water.

The weather was still pleasant so we sat around and chatted some more before descending down and off to camp. From the summit it was possible to look down on the glacier below and see the strange effects that happen when two glaciers join. Boulders had been arranged into lines across the ice. Some of the ice was blue and polished and cracked in places while the rest was white.

Looking down to the merging of two glaciers.

As usual I was last back to the skis, but took a different route back towards camp. Rather than dropping down into a snowbowl and then climbing back out I skied around the bowl so as not to lose height. Skiing on the flat is on average faster than skiing down and then back up a hill. I went a longer distance but was overall faster and nearly caught John up before my next cairn building exercise. In the middle of the glacier was a tiny Nunatak. By tiny I mean miniscule, maybe one metre of rock above the ice. Other people had been there but not climbed it. There were no ski tracks up its flank, or footprints in the snow where someone had taken there skies off. So I claimed it. Another first ascent! There was just enough loose rocks around to build a three stone cairn. I never bothered to name it and its not marked on any of our maps or on lists of summits. It would have to be called pointless peak or something similar, being so small and insignificant. I did it for fun. Maybe in centuries time with the warming atmosphere and icecaps melting it may no longer to one metre tall but twenty and then be worth a cairn, but not now.