We set out into another good looking morning at first light. You’d think that in a day that begins with temperatures of -6°C there would be plenty of ice falls to choose from, but that didn’t turn out to be the case.

At our first stop, at the gorge below Vermok Bridge, we found very little climbable ice, so continued uphill to Krokan Area.

Here we found plenty of deep powdery snow, where it would have been easy to loose a lot of kit!

On previous visits, I’d barely noticed that I’d crossed a frozen river bed to reach the ice falls on the far side of the valley, so was somewhat surprised/alarmed to find a raging river thundering through the canyon!

Climbing here was clearly out of the question and the famous routes were only half formed anyway, so it didn’t really matter that we couldn’t reach them. On the plus side, the scenery was fantastic.

Despite all this, we actually found the perfect place to do some teaching on some good angled slopes, just in the edge of the forest car park, below the bridge that looks down at the river.

Skies were blue and temps remained low as we climbed a number of snow covered ice slabs.

Although it was blue sky, the sun didn’t get high enough to reach us. I didn’t need my big belay jacket this time as the temperature hovered around zero for most of the day.

The easy access to the base of the ice meant that we could all have a go at placing ice screws and building some ice thread anchors.

Some even chipped out ice bollards that we tested by hanging off ropes from them.

There was more than enough to keep us busy for the day (along with building a small igloo!).

The skies looked quite dramatic towards sunset, with some funky lenticular clouds forming in the distance.

This time, we were back at the van just before headtorches were needed.

But only just! It was pitch black by the time we got to the shops.

A super evening in the house ensued, with an enormous five course meal and more great chat. After clearing up, we had another round of Grandma Martin’s Shopping game after last nights hilarious success. Somehow it got late quickly and we’ve all retired to bed ready for a big mountain day tomorrow….