Saturday 4th December

Today, one armed Caruthers, Algernon, Biggles and Ginger headed for the Black ladders! Once again another early start due to the tides, Caruthers did not moan as he knew Ginger would hate the walk in, even more than he hated having to get up early. Indeed Ginger had had a few beers the night before so may have forgotten about the walk in. As they left Gerlan and negotiated the slush and sheep pooh trails, (yes they did follow the sheep track and got deviated off the path). Well it was dark, but even better those that followed, followed those tracks too!

Some time later they arrived at the base of the cliff, where the path ran out. They then had to trend to the left hand side. Caruthers under the assumption that the party behind him were after the same route, awoke and headed upwards at great speed showing some of his old skill at picking crap lines in snowy, boulderey, steep slopes (well until he fell in a massive hole). And so arrived at the base of Eastern Ridge hot and sweaty, his triumph brief as the party behind, having made the  most of the now beaten path headed for east gully.  Meanwhile Ginger and Biggles headed for Pyramid gully.

 Algernon decided at this point that climbing without a helmet, using one technical axe and one old walking axe (he had picked the wrong one out of his car, and on one 9mm rope was not challenge enough and threw away a vital part of his crampon! So making most of the opportunity they looked at the many ways you could dig in the snow and then the use of cable ties to mend crampons.

Some time later Algernon headed upwards with the only 2 ice screws they had, after throwing away a sling he decided to place his first ever ice screw, (badly, ed) then 20feet later his second! (better! ed). Luckily the belay was a massive icicle.

Soon they swapped leads picking the most interesting lines as the snow fell, fell and fell! Enjoying the joys of powder snow, black ladders turf, the easy escape to the left and the pair that persevered with wading waist deep up the gully to their right.

Meanwhile Biggles and Ginger were enjoying the steep ice of pyramid gully,  in particular Ginger was not enjoying the snow in the linking pictures, mainly as it involved walking.

After meeting at the top they headed down, well followed various footprints in various circles in roughly the right direction, after stopping Biggles from continuing uphill they turned left. Caruthers was slightly perturbed as his navigation angel, the fair Fiona was whispering in his ear, look at the map, take a bearing, look at the map, take a bearing, but Caruthers was more interested in keeping the deep powder snow out of his boots and watching Algernon attempt to bum slide. At this point bum sliding and sharp pointy boulders reared there ugly head! Laugh.

After a long and tedious fight, slide, fall, struggle they emerged from the cloud not recognizing anything! Something to with the amount of snow falling! Look at the map, take a bearing finally won over the snow in Caruthers socks. They took the opportunity to look at the affects of snow on depth perception, while streams acted as rivers, crags were invisible, 100m looking like 300m, before working out where they were or where they thought they might be. On the way to the bottom of the moraine they looked at the skills of navigation in poor weather and the many use of  buried axes, (something that Ginger was particularly good at, see assessment, previous day) in fact so good (or bad) at it were they, they managed to misplace a DMM Super Fly. Ginger despite re navigating back up hill was fairly phlegmatic about it, stating that Mrs Ginger had always wanted some black diamond ice axes for Christmas!

They made their way wearily back to Gerlan amongst the moans of Ginger (its the walking you know) and the even more slushy smelly sheep pooh tracks!