The weather was still pretty awful the first half of the day, but then gradually improved. Not in time for us to undertake a longer ski and move on to the next hut, but enough to allow us to go out and stretch our legs on a little circuit near the hut.

Bright white skies and white snow made photography difficult today, plus I had my ski goggles on to protect against the wind. Most of the time I couldn’t see anything on the camera LCD screen. I almost thought the camera was broken, but I could just barely make out some of the indicators in the corners. I just set the camera to Auto mode, pointed it roughly in the right direction, clicked and hoped for the best.

Dyranut seems to be a centre for kite skiing. We saw numerous kite skiers and kite snowboarders both yesterday before the storm, and today after it. Yesterday’s winds were strong enough, even well before the storm, to lift the skiers in to air – I literally saw some of them flying. Flying among icy rocks with your skis on seems like a dangerous idea, but on the other hand they seemed to be fully in control, so I guess they know what they’re doing.

There were a couple of dog sled teams here overnight. I wonder if the dogs stayed out in the storm all night.

Yesterday on the trail we also passed groups who were camping out in tents. One of the groups was training for a trip across the South Pole, if I caught the conversation correctly. I guess if that’s what you’re aiming for, then a night out in a snowstorm with temperatures no lower than –10°C is peanuts.