Advance Base Camp

We dragged our loads to a halt next to the other climbers camp at about 1pm and decided we should make use of the sunny weather and do a fuel and food run up on to the ridge crest. This was going to be a theme for the rest of the trip. We would first do a gear run for half a day up along the ridge. We’d drop the load and then return back down to our previous camp for the night. Then the next day we’d pack up the camp and move up the ridge again with the rest of the gear and establish a new camp either where we had left the load the previous day or up to half a day further on up the ridge.

We had moderate loads and headed up the slope to get onto the ridge. The slope was in fact quite steep at about 50 degrees. That was no real issue, but the snow conditions were not great. The slope was facing south and thus got the full force of the sun – and the days were very long at this time of year. The result was that the snow on the slope had become “isothermal” to about 75cm deep. This means that it was like moving through a stiff ice slushy drink! Not only that but it was with a load and up a steep hill! This is also quite dangerous from the perspective of avalanche!
We struggled away at it for an hour or so and decided that it was too dangerous. We turned around and headed down. We figured that we would have to do it very early in the day with the hope that the overnight freeze would set the surface of the snow so we could climb it more easily and more safely.

29th May
Up and on our way by 7:30am. We worked our way up the slope and indeed it was better but still pretty bad. It took us two and a half hours and we made it up onto the crest of the ridge.
At this point, the climbing changed abruptly. The snow became firm and easy to move over but that didn’t help. The ridge immediately got steep and changed to mixed rock and ice. There was a steep little step that I lead through with some effort. When I got to the top, I found a fixed line anchored there but buried in the snow. We dug this out and it took a slightly different line through the step, but this made it far easier and quicker for the others in the group. Then we wandered along the mixed snow and rock ridge – being careful to stay away from the edge with probable cornices! - for an hour or two more before we got to a suitable Camp 1. This was an obvious widening of the ridge (It had been quite narrow and had a very steep drop off on the North side… and the South side for that matter too!) and had much more snow than rock.
We dumped the gear at our new Camp1, had a break, enjoyed the view and speculated on what the route was going to be like further ahead (given the sad state of the snow on that lower slope and the tricky nature of the mixed rock and snow). Then we headed down the mixed section of ridge, rappelled over the rock step and carefully slipped and slithered our way back down the now very soft slope to camp by 6pm.