Cirque 2 Sea Day 6 : 06-08-2016

Phwoar! Minus 5 degrees when I woke up this morning. Even wet things that were inside the tent with me froze, like my damp walking pants. Everything in the vestibule (the part of the tent outside your sleeping area but under the fly or outer skin) went rock solid. The boots were impossible to put on so I had to hold them over the stove flame for a while to defrost. The bonus was that the old snow had refrozen as well. So what was slushy and hard to walk though yesterday was solid and good to walk on today. At least until lunchtime, then the sun warmed it up again and it went a bit mushy.

I located strong evidence of another burrowing crayfish hangout with a body part- recognise it from the photo Alastair?

The lakes remained mostly frozen over but I spied a hardy little fish through the ice. Maybe an introduced trout or native galaxia?

By 2pm I was worn out and had not felt my toes since getting out of the sleeping bag so when I spied a flat and snow free bed of alpine coral fern I dropped the pack and set up camp. The solar panel put a few % charge into the phone and I dried everything except my boots out. They are inside the tent in the pack liner tonight!

Cirque 2 Sea is a partnership project between the Bookend Trust, the Derwent Estuary Program and our supporters.