Day 3 - minus three gully

Donald was off like a shot soloing up slingsbys chimney early doors to rig ropes down minus three this morning. The crux out of the cave had just enough ice to make it interesting. Above, three pitches of Perfect neve led to north east buttress. I definitely wouldn't have liked to be step cutting out of the cave. Speaking of which, some folk were asking why we weren't step cutting ourselves this week. Neither of us have ever tried it before and a week of grade Vs probably wouldn't be the place to start. By all accounts it's quite a skill and to be honest we don't have any idea how to do it! Tonight we did manage to get hold of a couple of wooden tools so we might have a go bouldering about later in the week if we have time. In the morning we are off early to climb a thin looking observatory buttress. This evening in the gathering gloom myself and donald dug out some belays from the snow and rigged it for Paul to film us.

Guy was filming us today from under Orion face. A rucksack came flying past from somewhere up high, probably zero gully, followed by various other bits of kit. Fortunately no climbers came by in the same direction. And the owner came past later to collect the fallen kit.

Our unbelievable luck with conditions continues, although smiths route is looking very thin so I might not be saying that later on in the week.