Expedition Reports

Pre-expedition Reports
Iceland Transfer
Walking In
First Reports
Second Reports
Final Reports

 

First Reports

13:00 Wednesday 28/07/04

Blue skies are back. Everyone is planning for the next few days out and about. This afternoon we have a winter Olympics planned on the glacier behind Base Camp. As I type the novice skiers are using the opportunity, of the our own local ‘pisted’ slope, to learn about skiing and ski mountaineering.

17:30 Tuesday 27/07/04

We have been on the Milne Land for a full week now. The latest news from Base Camp, is that it is still snowing and has been for the last 40hrs. Fortunately it looks as though the end is in sight as the flakes are very light and the sun is breaking through again. Oh how different the camp looks from just two days previous. Then we had all returned from a number of recce trips and were relaxing in the sun, basking on the rocks that make up the moraine upon which we camped. More recently, our tents have had to be excavated at regular intervals to ensure that we don’t lose them under the fresh snow.

Thursday 22/07/04 The recce phase written by Tim Stewart.

In the short time that we have experienced 24hr daylight it has been noted that travel is easier late at night or early in the morning, whilst conditions under foot are firmer. After an evening to recover from our walk in a number of recce trips set off. Chris led a team of skiers North to check out the ridges to the north of Korridoren. Liam led a group up a local peak, we named ‘Great White’. Joe led a group up a distant peak to the SW, which a previous expedition has attempted but failed. Because of the cat like rock structure on the top this mountain has been named ‘Sphinx’. There was also an exploratory trip down to the West End of Korridoren to check out ‘Shark’s Fin’ and assess access to the NW coast. The group I led included Joe C, Robbie and Rich. We wanted to check out access points to the South, bag a couple of snow peaks and investigate the theory of moving fast and light.

Ski Mountaineering written by Paul Sanday.

18:30 the team of Andy Brown, Chris, Paul, Stuart, Tom and Ken set off on skis to explore the northern ice cap. Going was easy though tenuous, through the maze of crevasses. The aim was to head due north, though we had to break left up another cravassed glacier which we aptly named ‘Gambler’s Luck’ after our route finding and luck with the snow bridges. After a long evening we topped out at our advance camp at 03:30, in the midnight sun. The next two days were spent ski mountaineering up virgin peaks. The first was called ‘Red Rose Mountain’ at 2079m which was a straight forward ski peak. The second was ‘Lemming Peak’ at 2030m which required skis off and rope, crampons and bottle to cross ‘Lemming Ridge’ a knife edge snow arête. We came down after three nights down ‘Sleighride Glacier’, named such as we skied down with the pulk in good style. We were back at camp at 12:00 Sunday after some high quality steep and deep action and two first ascents, Brill.

Great White written by Evan Lowe.

Liam led the saga tours on another bimble, with Adam and myself, leaving at 9:30pm. We made it across the Korridoren to the mouth of the small glacier leading to Great White in good time and began the easy ascent into the corrie before the final push for the top. It took a little longer than planned as the glacier had many large crevasses to negotiate. Upon achieving the top of the corrie poles were replaced with ice axes. Once we began the final ascent of the snow covered face it became painfully clear that the snow was much deeper than we anticipated and the going became tough. Our initial aim of investigating a subsidiary top and a table top column next to it was abandoned in favour of a more direct route. We reached a large col between the summit and the spur half an hour spare before midnight. The remaining climb with conditions under foot deteriorating further took an age. We reached the top, at 2am, just enjoying pictures, handshakes and we built a cairn, before bracing ourselves for a long and difficult descent. 6 hours later we returned back to BC.

Snow Peaks written by Tim Stewart.

Leaving BC at 23:30 we headed across Korridoren to the SE, towards our choice of two side glaciers. The one further away from camp appeared more promising and so we set off up it roped up because of all the crevasses. The sun was just coming up to warm us as we topped out of the glacier as we rested and had a brew. Our main objectives were either side of the col, a triangular pointed snow peak, ‘Guardian of Korridoren’ and a rounded snow peak, ‘Snow Dome’. Summitting on the Guardian was fantastic with views in all directions of the surrounding mountains. Our route was then reversed to then bag the Snow Dome and we continued to investigate the Black Ridge behind. This was made of crumbling black basalt rock so we decided to by pass it. If we had headed back at this point we would have been back to BC for breakfast, but the team decided to cross the 3km snow plateau to also climb the Greater Snow Dome to the West. This turned out to be extremely exhausting, breaking through the surface, knee deep into the snow on most steps. Taking turns to break the trail we occasionally crashed out snoozing on our rucksacks in the snow. Eventually broken we attained a col at 1560m and decided to return to BC by the easiest route, rather than thrashing through more snow to another summit.

Given a choice of two glaciers to descend, we chose the gentler slope, according to the map. After descending quite a distance, we decided it was going to end in ice falls and retraced our steps back through the complex crevasse system to try the alternative. This was just as crevassed however the gradient was more manageable and we returned to BC at 19:30, having gathered much useful information.

Sphinx written by Joe Ashworth.

Leaving BC at 00:30 the route included crossing a fairly complex crevasse system, before ascending a subsidiary glacier with yet more crevasse to a col at 1671m at approx 07:30. This was the setting for a light weight bivy in the ‘warmth’ of an arctic morning, before setting off at 16:30. The north ridge was loose basalt (broken black rock) which required considerable care. We quickly summitted at 19:30, spending 1hr on top (approx 1900m) having 2nd tea. Descent by the south ridge was relatively easy, followed by an abseil descent of the bergschrund leading back to our early ascent of the glacier system.

West End written by Adam Lechmere.

Another Saga tours excursion set out with 5 young ones to walk down to the other end of the Korridoren glacier from where the landing site had been. A sea to sea in effect. The 10 of us set out at 1am Saturday with two pulks loaded up. We reached the summit of the glacier ‘Shap Summit’ after an hour or so. The walk was easy from there on with flat ice and a heavy pulk to push us along! The glacier was quite cravassed, making us stop and carry the pulks over the rivers and glaciers. The area was full of ‘big walls’ excellent rock climbing and plenty of small glaciers and cirques. The most interest was on the ‘shark fin’ for a possible first ascent. After 8km we cleared an area on the moraine and pitched the tents. After a few hours sleep we headed down through a very crevassed area until we could see the water and across to Renland. We stopped here and returned to the tents for a few hours sleep, before heading back. We may have been the first people to walk this area of the glacier.

Pulk Fiction written by Phil Emmott.

It was about 10pm when Tim, Joe and myself set off to christen two brand new shiny new sets of touring ski’s and the classic pink dreams on Milnelands glaciers. I volunteered to tow the pulk and after discovering that skins stop one from skiing on the spot, the team set off for 3 or 4 days. After a couple of hours or so the Korridoren was crossed and we began the ascent of our chosen glacier. The going was tough and the learning point seemed to be that pulks are heavy! As Tim seemed to learn after a quick change over of the pulk we continued our ascent. The glacier started to exhibit some interesting features and the weather which had been closing in around us eventually led to the decision to abandon our ascent and return to base camp. We ditched the pulk to continue up and assess the exit from this glacier with difficult route finding in heavily crevassed terrain. Upon nearing the top we decided this was the wrong glacier so returned to the pulk via a less crevassed route. Collecting the pulk the descent was an exciting team effort and after a steep learning curve the pulk was delivered intact to the foot of the glacier. We left the pulk with full intention of returning the following day to continue our expedition. After our trek back and warming welcome drinks the snow had set in making the return visit impractical for a while, until it was realised that Joe’s thermarest was stowed in the pulk!…

Musk Ox Tower written by Trevor Morton.

One of our aspirations was to do a new rock route on a face towering over base camp that we had only previously seen in pictures at home. Two groups of two we’re keen to do the route, Ben and Sam, and Jayne and myself. In order to try and climb this new line we had to be sure of a descent route. To do this we all went to recce the descent off the face by foot up the glacier behind base camp. There was an apparently obvious scramble down to the glacier so we set off roped up to investigate. Once we had established a route off we carried on up the glacier until we met the headwall where the glacier turned rightwards uphill. We then followed a steep line of ice up to a col up the headwall. For this col we could see down the side glacier from Korridoren that we had named Sleighride glacier. Views were as always fantastic and we were all pleased that we could have a day doing some mountaineering by ourselves. We returned safely to base camp in high spirits to be greeted by a curious group of 25 who were eager to known of our tales of a possible descent of Musk Oxe Tower.