May 27

The wind picked up overnight and it was blowing a gale by morning. It blew from the northwest, over the icecap and so it was really cold. The wind carried snow and ice particles which sandblasted any exposed skin. The tents and anything else around which disturbed the wind slowly got snow building up on them. The wind penetrated the outer of my tent and slowly filled the porch. Snow pressed against the inner door. Every so often I pushed it back to take the tension off. Only the brave or foolhardy went out that day. Glen and Petter fit this category and made a second ascent of Stob Coire an Lochan. The rest stayed in there sleeping bags and read or slept.

The wind blown campsite. The sky may look blue but the white haze around tents is wind blown snow. 10.15am

Scott had been reading a book by Tilman back at Constable point. This is an author I liked so asked to borrow the book. Unfortunately he had finished it and left it behind at the air base. Tilman was a great mountain explorer during the first half of this century. He and Shipton loved to explore mountain areas. To them mountaineering was just the means to explore, not the ends. They wanted to understand how a group of mountains fitted together. What passes went where. What was the source of a river and where were the watersheds. They both spent an early part of their lives in Africa. They made many of the first ascents of the mountains in Africa. Snow on the Equator is hard to believe but they climbed most of it. Tilman than cycled right across Africa to catch a boat back to England. The pair took part in many expeditions to the Himalaya. One of their books is called "Blank on the Map" where they explored a region which is now known as the Karakoram. They were also involved in the Everest reconnaissance expeditions. It was a group lead by Tilman that decided to explore around Everest and had a look around the other side. They found what is now one of the normal routes up. Once they found this route up they lost interest in Everest. The way up had been found it just needed someone to do it. There was little exploration left to do so they moved on. They were also well know for their style. They took minimalist to the extreme, living on a very meagre and simple diet. The had very simple equipment and their expeditions were always small. They roughed out the worst of weather, floods and storms and when they ran out of food they lived from the land eating whatever was available in the remote locations they traveled in.

Their desire to explore new regions and to use mountaineering as a tool to achieve this rather than the goal has always appealed to me. It was reading about these two men that indirectly got me to Greenland. I had hoped to get involved in an expedition to the Himalaya and explore an area of unclimbed peaks. Then I fell off Brownie Gill in the Langdale valley of the Lake District and smashed up a tibia into 5 pieces. The outcome is that walking long distances is now not feasible, at least not at the moment. The ankle keeps improving but it would not be up to the multi day walking required to get into the mountains of the Himalaya. This is before any time would be spent actually exploring and climbing. So the Himalaya are off. I was reading High one day when I came across an article about an expedition to Greenland. They had a helicopter drop them off on the glacier, they skied to the base of the summit and then did relatively easy climbs up mountains no one else had ever been up. There were no maps, only aerial photographs. It was a mixture of exploration and mountaineering. This appealed. So I got in touch with the company who organized the expeditions and found out what was planned for next year and what level of competence was needed.

Skiing was an unknown at that point. Would my ankle allow me to ski? Well, living in Switzerland meant giving it a go was not a problem. I spent a day in early December in Engleberg, hired Telemark skis and had an introductory lesson to downhill skiing. In big boots the ankle was not too bad. It had plenty of support and only hurt when falling over. This give me an incentive to not fall over, but my incompetence overruled quite a lot. The conclusion was that downhill skiing was possible and with practice may even be pain free. I spent another day on cross country skis. These use boots a bit like sport shoes. They provide little support and by the end of the three hour session my ankle had definitely had enough. Again it was the falling over that caused the problem, not so much the skiing. In Greenland bigger boots are used which would provide the support my ankle needs. I knew i could still do the mountaineering. I had climbed the Monch that summer, a 4000m peak in the Alps. I'd also spent many weekend days exploring the lower mountains of Switzerland.

So I signed up for an exploration-style trip to Greenland, bought some skis, spent the rest of the winter season on laupe, piste and mountain valleys and so here I was stuck in a tent during a storm in northeast Greenland.

Without a Tilman to read I picked the next best on offer. An Ian Banks book which was read from cover to cover and proved very entertaining.

Stary digging out his tent at 10 o'clock at night. Behind is the summit he and Paul attempted twice.