In reply to Ollie Torr:
Hi Ollie,
The original plan was to take everything from the coast to the snout of the glacier and then access the higher plateau for ski touring and mountaineering. This involved humping stupidly heavy rucksacks in relays from the "road" (= dirt track).
The glacier was very steep fronted and access was essentially a low grade ice climb. The rippling ridge effect of the ice meant that the pulks wedged nose down in the troughs and would not pull forward easily if at all, they went sideways a treat!. Hence we ended up carrying them, which sort of defeated the purpose. The snowline had retreated much further up the glacier then was anticipated, so again the skis were carried.
After 3 days of hacking it up the blue ice, we called it quits. The original plan was to go up one glacier and return via another, but we decided that the second glacier looked more gnarly than the first in the satphot and we would be low on food, fuel and time at that stage.
Change of plan!
Ditched the pulks and skis, gained access to the interior via the rock ridges bordering the glaciers. Hard going but at least you felt progress was being made. Problem was that the ridge lines are sheer above the ice and getting onto the glaciers this way is a bit hit and miss as well as loose and err..well never been tried before most likely.
Several attempts later, we ditched that plan and did an overland trip connecting the ridges and any peaks we could find.
So a bit of an adventure. Frustrating and knackering but looking back it was educational. We set off with great ideas but with no real feel for the terrain. Reality was painful at times.
The second trip was further North. More snow. Flew onto the plateau. Stepped off the plane onto snow. Ski-ing with pulk within half an hour of touchdown. On this one we manhauled to good basecamps and ticked off likely looking peaks. Costly but no non-sense.
Hope this helps.
Good luck.
Sean.
