Mount Bastion

A major difficulty here was the weather and the snow that accumulated during our stay. The weather was normally fine in the early morning, but by mid-day, had clouded over and snow was falling. This normally continued for the rest of the day. By the end of our time, most of the slopes were covered by about 300 mm of snow. We were fortunate in having the initial two fine days with clear rock. By carrying page 16 out the reconnaissance with P.J. Barrett who had described the section previously (Barrett and Webb, 1973), we were able to select the locations we wished to sample in the first few days and were subsequently able to carry on almost blind, which was a distinct advantage considering we worked much of the time in near white-out conditions and our tracks from one day to the next were almost obliterated. We are very grateful to Dr Barrett for making this time available.