On Sunday afternoon I dragged Cheese (real name Iain) up the hill despite -8C and 20 knots of wind. He then dragged me up Pink Moon which is an ice climb that took almost three pitches to get to the ridge of Middle Stork. By the time we got to the top it was 7:10pm and the sun was setting at 7:45pm. It was snowing hard and Iain gotee and mustache were well iced up!

The visibility was OK although it was snowing when we got to a little windscoop where we took off our glacial travel coils. Cheese then headed up the sloop putting in ice screws which I belayed him. Once he got about 50m away he put in two ice screws and anchored himself to it and belayed me up the 1st pitch. We swapped places and he took off again with me belaying him. He had to go across the slope first before heading up so he wasn’t able to see how much rope was left and my voice was carried away by the strong wind which was blowing snow all around.

The visibility closed down very quickly so that we could hardly see the skidoo below us and eventually it dissappeared altogether. I removed all the anchor screws and belay and started climbing to stay with Cheese so that he could find another place to anchor himself and wait for me at the end of the pitch. The horizontal climb was actually quite hard work and nerve racking with the ice being so brittle under a layer of soft powder. It was hard work to get a good grip for the ice axe and hammer.

About 30 meters from the end when Cheese was standing on the ridge out of view my crampon fell off my left boot. So what was a hard ice climb became even harder! I yelled up at Cheese but the wind made it impossible for him to hear. The visibility drew in more and it started to get dark. So I did what we do in the marine team and ‘manned the f*** up’ as there was nothing he could do as even if we had a spare crampon I was on a 80% slope so I wouldn’t have been able to fit it! I then proceeded to step up with my right boot digging the front points of the one crampon in and then cut a step with my ice axe for my left foot. Needless to say it took a while.

Once on the ridge we called back to base on 18 told them we would be an extra 30 minutes past out original ETA and that all was well. Seeing as Cheese had not done Stork Ridge before and didn’t know where the crevasses were and the contrast was so poor I led the way. We were again roped up for glacial travel. We crossed the crevasse I knew about from when Adam fell into it at the beginning of the summer. I could then see two hollows in the snow just before Stork Bowl and found there were two more crevasses that had opened up. My right crampon was holding me and I was half skiing with my left boot sans crampon down into Stork Bowl. To get out of the Bowl you have to climb up over a little cornice and then it was a short trot back to the skidoo.

Sunday dinner which we were late for and was put to one side for us was delicous then it was time for early bed as I was exhausted!

The red line is the route up the bottom part of Middle Stork.