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Interesting hike. 1.2m snow. It was quite easy to die if one was not prepared. The snow etched off the freshly applied water repellent on my mountain boots so I was getting wet feet on the East side of the mountain where it was warmer due to sunshine. Sinking down chest deep, climbing out on my elbows while getting shiny fingernails from snow polish because my gloves got soaked and were useless icy thingies. Sliding down 20m to the exit point using frozen ropes, hoping I can nail that little cornice on the edge of the lower exit point with my left, no right foot as I was twisting hanging only by my hands on a frozen rope. I was thinking that if I could not pull off the exit that I could hung out at the cave until April until the snow thawed.
I successfully planted my foot on the edge to arrest the slide, chunked the rope away and jumped. So happy to be off the Mountain, fly by the climbing wall, then on to the main landing area.
I am quite happy to land safe in the embrace of the LZ Bar and Unclecharlie95 is organizing another load. Thanks to Mucho BASE and the Canadian / South African jumpers for trail blazing and to especially "Dark Fear" for standing by to help me when my femur was bending in between subsurface trees laid over by the snow and my stash bag pushing me the other way. Much rispetto (respect) to all and the Mountain.
Take care,
space

Easy to die if not prepared...ey? So what are you trying to say bro!?!? You pointing fingers?

Yeeaaaa... that Canadian/S. African jumper and I know...

Hard hike.... Oh come on, we made quite a nice path of footsteps for everyone. At least up until the end where we missed the up and over path for the cave where we planned to sleep that night.

"Stressful Sigh" We found the start of the trail easy... then got really lost, finally found the road, got slightly lost again in the Meadow being it was getting dark, started snowing, and we couldnt see 30ft in front of us from the white out even with the head lamp. Quite an interesting 9 hour hike! We were so freaking close too! Shit, I cant believe how close we were to the edge... "Lets throw some ice over, see if we can hear anything..."

Oh well.... We're alive. I still cant believe I didnt bring those cliff bars! Looked at them for a good 5 minutes debating it too... "i just ate, 3 hours... we'll be fine." Those Pocket Coffee's you brought were the shit though! "Wanna eat'em now or wait... ummm lets wait.."

Yea, that pretty much sucked! Thanks for keeping me positive dude! Never been in a situation like that before, and the OCD/Anxiety sure was beating me down. And a million thanks to the person who brought us food and drink there at the end of the hike out. Can't thank you enough! And what a sweet 4 way flight two days later! Great way to end the trip!

It was great meeting you Tracy! And everyone else as well. Looking forward to seeing everyone again in the summer and next winter! I think I will be passing on the "Balls Deep" snow hike in the future...

Coco

Firstly I would like to apologize to everyone who started that hike based on there being footsteps already and the assumption that the people making those steps would've turned back if the conditions were unreasonable.

I will also apologize for getting lost and taking an entirely new path for quite some time, but as I later saw, people were happy to follow this new path rather than take the more correct direction.

If I were smarter I would have turned back long before I actually did.

I would also like to thank James Boole for being an outstanding person and going way above and beyond for fellow jumpers who displayed bad judgement and worse preparation.

Lastly, for any disbelievers out there, I have attached a picture to show that when we say 'balls deep snow' we are measuring from the feet...

impressive!

I guess now you understand why I turned down your most generous offer of joining you when I had the opportunity to go whilst it was nice back in mid-October.



I presume it's better down in the RSA?