hurry in that snow was hell. We continued to lead through, not daring to move together, but we developed a faster and tolerably safe method of progress; a short-term technique for emergencies. At every step the leader pawed and kicked like a dog, scraping away the new snow until he found himself kicking at the solid layer. Into this he stuck the front two points of his crampons and, balanced on these, pawed again for the next hold - always with the right leg, since we were moving rightwards, and this was infinitely wearing. There was no respite when the other man took over, for muscles remained tense and both of us were frightened, each knowing the leader might fall at any moment - and that the belays were not good enough.

The weather appeared to be deteriorating and, with our ignorance of what had happened in the gully, the next half-hour was unpleasant. Once we were on the top and could move fast, movement superseded thought.

We hurried along the edge of the cliff to the top of Number Two Gully. The cornice didn't appear to be broken and there were no tracks leading away from it. Lees belayed well back from the edge and I went forward, on a tight rope, to investigate.

I went out to the side of the gully first and looked back at the cornice. There was a gash in its overhang, as if an axe had sliced through it without resistance; below this I saw two or three steps which had been cut, then signs of more snow having come away, and below that, the start of a chute; the unmistakable groove made by a falling body.

I went out above the centre of the cornice and looking down the gully, I could see as far as the bend where the ice pitch was. There was no sign of a human being except the chute pluning, straight as an arrow, for the bend. The whistle had stopped.

Lees suggested that we should descend the gully. Staring at the swept ice, visualising what we should come on at the foot, I was ridiculously unnerved, and said no, we would have to cut too many steps. This was a mistake; the descent would have been quite feasible in crampons and would have saved us a further long ascent.

We ran along to the top of Number Three Gully on the other side of the buttress called the Comb, and came so fast down it that Catherine MacInnes, watching from two thousand feet below, thought we were either her husband's party or people falling.

The speed was not sustained. We rounded the foot of the Comb and started the long and agonising plod up several hundred feet of snow to the foot of Number Two Gully. Dimly I was aware of Lees stopping to coil the rope while I went on, the blood roaring in my ears, and instead of breath I was drawing great racking groans.

When I looked up I saw a body lying on the snow, lolling rather, on its side and watching me. I shouted. There was some reply. There was no relief, for two were missing. I plodded on, saw something red in the snow (a man suffocating under the debris?) and shouted more urgently, asking where the others were. The lounging figure said calmly that he had sent them down as they were novices.

Now I could stand and recover for a moment, and poke at the red thing - which was only a balaclava - and exchange stares with the man. He was young, fully conscious and blue. Continue to Page 9