Camp 3

2nd June
We were up and away with the camp fully packed up by 9am. This made for big loads and slow going up the serpentine arête (altitude starting to have an effect on performance here) but it was easier this time with steps already there and not completely filled in by snow over night. The weather was overcast with some light snow but only light winds. We belayed up the top pitch of the serpentine arête and over the knife-edge but the rest was easy enough. There was only about 20cm of snow over our tracks from yesterday, so we didn’t have to do much trail clearing work. It turned out that where we dumped the gear yesterday was only a hundred meters short of the Camp 3 location, so we didn’t have to go too far back along the trail to bring that gear up to Camp 3.

Again we spent a couple of hours digging elaborate snow works for the camp. – 2x tent platforms, kitchens and toilets etc… I stopped digging long before Marcus did because I just don’t see the point. Rus’ and Ian seem to like digging too and have their tent dug in so the peak of the tent is below the surface line of the snow. We had finished all the work of the day by 5pm and settled in to our new Camp 3.

Note: Its very hard to dry out gloves and socks when there is never any sunshine and the more snow work you do, the wetter your clothing gets!