Surface stuff
Jenny Black
Woke up to yet more rain, and our text to Base Camp asking the weather forecast got the response "lots of ming, followed by more ming", so we figured that the 1970's route was unlikely to be do-able for a while. Going down the hill seemed the best plan with some surface surveying and tagging on the way. Firstly tagged 108, then 2005-98 and 2005-97, and tied them into the 2005-99 surface survey. Continued surface surveying to 2006-71 and then 2005-08 and 2005-07 then 175 and 176. It was loads better than yesterday cos it was less foggy and so survey legs could on occassion be longer than ~20m. Headed north from 176 to look for 98, failed, but in hindsight the bearings suggest it is a reasonable distance further north than we looked. Continued the survey to 174 and then 200 [this hard to read - 205d?]. Planned to retag 200 but that had already been done (fortunately as it needed a non-13mm spanner). Because of the worsening weather and the time we wasted looking for 98 it was kind of getting dark. We had both thought that the clearly cairned path from 174 to 175 and so on continued the other way from 200 to near the col. If it does, we failed to follow it, and ended up too far west in an ocean of Bunde, followed by more bunde, and it was raining and getting dark and Olly had a bad headache.
Decided not to go and tag 101a and aimed ~ south. Every so often the mist cleared enough for us to see the col and the scree below the Brauning Wall which helped a bit, though the bunde made it hard to pick a direction to walk in. Mostly followed a fault line / gully and eventually hit the old Top Camp to Puffball path which was (a) well cairned and (b) remembered by Olly. Got to old Top Camp as it got dark which was relieving.
From then on it was dark, raining and foggy and we only had one light, and Olly's head hurt too much to wear it (cost it was attached to his helmet). Thus it took us an hour and a half to get back to the car, and was one of the more epic car to col walks I have done yet.
Struggled to find the way out of the car park as the visibility was so poor! Fortunately after ~ the 3rd hairpin we dropped out of the fog and could drive at more than 5mph! Surprised base camp by arriving at ~11.30pm when it had been dark and raining for hours.