In reply to ourkid: ha,ha no worries. Made me laugh theres nothing like being the other side of the world amongst the thick of it to put the minutie of UKC caht into perspective.
Thanks for the advice Norrie, supposedly my bag had a waterproof outer and I was saving weight with no bivi bag. Thweather here is such a funny changeable mix so much harder to plan for than say the Himalaya or Scotland. Weve a cunning plan for the return match. So we´ll see what happens, what can be certain is that something unexpected will no doubt turn up and well just have to improvise our way round that. All part of the fun of winter alpinism.
by the way noted that someone mentioned that we´re not doing cutting edge stuff that may be so. exocet has been climbed in winter by Alex Huber and Toni orlandi, two amazing climbers Im very glad to have an attempt on following. The fact that Dave has climbed E11 and winter XI doesn´t make me not want to hear about new E8-9s and winter IXs? It would be a funny world where all we are interested in is alinear progression of numbers? As for the cutting edge nature of winter ascents of Maestri´s joke compressor route thats another discussion.