Trips across the divide typically make two immediate impressions on me: cold (lots of it) and snow (not so much). The former had me dancing up and down beside the car in the semi-darkness trying to warm up before the day had even begun. The latter became obvious as we climbed above a sketchy waterfall onto the lower moraines and into the warm morning sunshine.
Scratchy. But it made for great travel conditions. On the way up anyway.
We toiled away at it for a few hours, marvelling at the ever expanding vista, before getting our first look at a very distant Hector.
Roping up at the toe of the glacier it didn't really seem necessary but every single account we had read mentioned using a rope so we followed suit. You'd hate to be *that* party.
We plodded along under a magnificent blue sky and slowly, ever so slowly, Hector grew larger before us. As we ground our way up the steep headwall the wind grew stronger and stronger. By the time we reached the notch between the two summits of Hector it was a full-on gale. These picture don't do it justice.
After ditching our skis and fumbling with our crampons we scrambled up the final rocky step, feeling a little desperate to get it done so we could get back down out of the wind!
Here's me on the summit trying to convince Brenda that she's still having fun.
A quick "well done" and a few hastily taken photos all around before carefully reversing our steps. That figure bravely skootching along on his butt is the 11,000er aspirant.
Skiing down steep wind-blasted sastrugi on tele gear is a character building activity at the best of times but we gave it the old college try. Ross, as ever, resorted to the "speed is your friend" technique but it seemed to work.
All in it took us 10.5 hours car to car with one long leisurely post-summit snack and lots of futzing at the col. A spectaculat day out and well worth the long drive. Thanks Ross.
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