Flying snowshoes and cheescake

I promised myself I wasn't going to write any more blogs about holidays and walks until I'd written one about work.  Unfortunately, since it took me so long to enthuse myself to write that one, I've now fallen extremely behind when it comes to writing about what I've been up to over recent weeks.

Since I callously left Ella behind in a damp, oily engine bay when I went on holiday to Sorling, it seemed very necessary to plan another adventure as soon as the boat was vaguely fixed and she was able to leave base again.  Harpon was the only hut within our travel area that we hadn't visited which made it the obvious choice.  The weather surpassed all expectations, and we arrived at the hut in time to enjoy a stroll along the beach in the evening sun, through elephant seal harems with large, but extremely cute pups and some particularly crotchety bulls who were not at all pleased to see us.

Looking down towards the Lyell Glacier - a massive landslide years ago means it's brown rather than normal glacier colour

Evening stroll along the beach - life here is really not so bad!

The next morning dawned clear and an ambitious plan was hatched to walk all the way up the moraine next to the Lyell Glacier to get to Lyell Lake.  Since there are no guidebooks for South Georgia and the maps are a little vague to say the least, there's really no way to know how easy it's going to be to get around.  After starting well it soon became apparent this wasn't going to be one of our better ideas.  Scrambling up and down large mounds of scree for hours on end is not the most fun you can have, and we decided going up prior to going along would be a better option.  A short, sharp scramble up the side of a river soon saw us looking out over the Neumayer Glacier, being blown around by insistent winds and trying to work our way through an area of South Georgia that hasn't been fully surveyed meaning the contour lines on our map were just guesstimates.  The view from the top of one of the peaks was easily worth the occasionally unpleasant feeling that we were about to be blown off it!

Morning cloud burning off over the Lyell Glacier

Ella looking remarkably pleased with herself with West Cumberland Bay in the background

Traversing round steep snow slopes while wearing snow shoes is a tricky business

Jo has clearly had some influence over our eating habits when camping (though not so much that we felt the need to take anything other than dehydrated ration packs for dinner), and I found myself feeling compelled to make pudding.  The options for this were limited as the only ingredients available were those left in the hut by previous groups, and a few extremely out of date emergency rations.   The resulting cheesecake concoction (Army ration biscuit base, chocolate Angel delight and tinned peaches topping) was not my best ever creation, but Ella politely ate a few mouthfuls before declaring she was full - she's pretty much never full which is how I knew she was just being polite!  The wind picked up dramatically overnight and Ella luckily went outside just in time to rescue a snow shoe as it hit her on the leg at the start of its journey off into the distance.  The hut rocked impressively and I seriously thought about getting down from my bed to get my bivvi bag just in case the whole hut blew away.  However, my sleeping bag was warm and laziness got the better of me.  Also, I suspect the hut has survived far worse conditions in the past!

Primus stoves are old and temperamental and even the most experienced campers occasionally create the odd fireball

Probably the best view from a hut window ever!

The following day was clear, but the wind continued to whistle around the hut.  Luckily, by the time we'd had breakfast and cleared up the hut it had died down a bit and we were able to start the journey home by an alternative route.  We stopped for lunch in grey drizzling horribleness but, just as we were thinking about moving on, the cloud cleared, the sun came out.  We spent about two hours dozing above Papua Beach before eventually psyching ourselves up for the haul up to Boulder Pass.

One of Ella's many and varied skills is her ability to fall asleep anytime anywhere

View down to KEP from the top of Boulder Pass

Steep descent from Boulder Pass