To High Camp

On the 21^st, we set up with a load of bivvy and climbing gear, hoping to establish a high camp (HC) under the face. This was approx 1000m above base camp (BC), approx 1.5km horizontal, with some steep slabs, gullys, grass and scrub to find our way up. In our first couple of hours we tried going directly above BC, but found ourselves amongst steep bluffs, climbing moss covered rock slabs to avoid thick thorny bush. A little demoralised we spied an easier spur to our right, the base of which had what looked like an old campsite from one of the previous parties up the valley. So back down the mossy slabs and through the thorny bushes, we were soon on the right track. From here the scrub eased off, turning to alpine grass and lichen, then scree, as we slogged up towards the face.

 

Mostly the face was obscured by afternoon cloud, but as we approached we had short glimpses, confirming what we could see from below. It was dry! Our hopeful coating of post winter snow and ice was not present, it looked like a whole lot of loose rock-climbing was needed to get up the face.

I was a little disheartened by what we saw, but the cloud and snow prevented any more views, so we stashed our kit by a good looking campsite on a spur and headed down. It had been a few long hard days climbing more than 2500m up to HC from the valley, so we spent the 22^nd as a rest day at BC, preparing for launching upwards the next day. As we were not sure how the route would go, we took up a few extra days of food and gas to allow for multiple attempts or sitting out bad weather, planning one night at HC and up to 3 on the mountain.