The traverse didn't actually take as long as we had thought, and we were soon cheering as we descended into the correct gully. We had lost it a few times in the cloud, but Lukas had the good idea of photographing the view so we could check our location when the mist came down again. The broad, open gully was quite boring compared to the exciting scrambling we had been doing before, but the gully soon narrowed to give us our first excitement; a short step. It was big enough to give pause for thought, and the rock was very crumbly; not nice to climb on. Marnus decided that it would be best to get one climber up, as he was confident that he could climb it, then for all the rest of the team to be pulleyed up with rucksacks. This proved to be time-consuming, but was probably the safest way of getting us and all our gear up. We soon found a few more of these, and this procedure was repeated.

It was in between two of these rock steps that Julie slipped on a rock and twisted her ankle. Whilst her ankle wasn't broken, it was painful enough that she doubted that she could walk far on it. Our choices were a two day trek back to the camp from where we were, or to continue up the pass for the rest of the day and then a day, possibly two to get back down an easier pass. We chose the latter option, as helping Julie over the easier terrain on one of the other passes would be easier than trying to get her over the very rough terrain we had encountered on the way up.

The pass was by now taking much longer than expected; we hadn't planned for needing ropes for the ascent, as nothing we had heard about the pass had suggested this was necessary, except for in a very few places. The final straw came when, with thick cloud chasing us up the pass, a thunderstorm started brewing overhead. After her experience getting struck by lightning in the Dolomites, Julie was understandably nervous at this development, and the more experienced team members all started looking a bit worried, saying we had about 10 minutes to get out of the gully if it started to rain. Suddenly all those loose boulders and the narrow gully started to look very dangerous.

The rain did come, suddenly, and accompanied by claps of thunder and flickering lightning. We hurriedly took what shelter we could find on the grassy slopes above the gully and, huddled beneath a flysheet, hunkered down to wait out the storm. The rain eased off after about 45 minutes. By this time it was starting to get dark. Marnus had surveyed the route ahead, and it was obvious that we would not manage to get up the next tricky section before dark, so we decided to make ourselves as comfortable as we could in the gully and wait for dawn before continuing our ascent.

It's times like this that I wish I had a bigger bum. Trying to make myself comfortable on hard rock with my bony hips gave me a miserable night. We huddled together, first under a flysheet, then added survival bags and even a sleeping bag. We daren't get too much gear out in case the rain came back and we needed to make a sharp exit out of the gully, but we managed to get food and drink out, to raise our spirits. Marnus even managed a welcome brew of coffee, which also helped us to stay awake.

There can have been no more welcome a sight than the dawn sunrise lighting up the Triplets. As the sun rose, it brought heat for cold and aching limbs and, eventually, enough light for an attempt on what we hoped was the final difficulty of the climb. Marnus set off up, with me belaying. This was by far the worst section we had thrown ourselves at. Fist-sized lumps of rock came showering down, as one foothold after another broke away from the crumbling face. Where the rock was not crumbly, it was greasy with a thick layer of slimy lichen, giving very uncomfortable climbing. Marnus managed to chimney almost to the top, but was stopped by a huge hanging boulder, which he daren't try to climb round as the consequences of dislodging it in the tight confines of the gully could have been terrible. Reluctantly he backed down, removing his one piece of gear, and we devised a plan B.

Marnus had already been looking at the possibility of a traverse out of the gully onto some steep grassy slopes. Erik decided to go out for a look, and to report back. After an anxious wait, he came back saying that the gully looked passable above the blockage, and that the grass slopes offered a viable option, but was very exposed and potentially dangerous, with the grass having only just dried out from the night's storms. Marnus decided to attempt to descend the gully from above, and provide a top-rope for the rest of the party, so, taking a rope and gear, set off. After a long time he reappeared at the head of the chimney, saying that the gully was highly dangerous above our current difficulties, and that the only sensible option was to get out of the gully onto the grassy slopes. He'd managed to down-climb the loose sections above, but didn't fancy his chances trying to climb back up again!

The three lads, Marnus, Lukas and Erik, managed to ferry our rucksacks to safer ground above the main grass slopes, while the rest of us traversed first out of the gully, then up a very steep section of grass. We used a shunt on this section, as it was very exposed, and the grass was mainly loosely attached to very unstable rock. After about a couple of hours, we were finally at the top.