Improvising keeps one alive, and at the beach you can hear the surf thump if not exult in the spindrift’s curl.

Days of blown snow and spindrift from powerful and freezing north-easterly winds had accumulated on every windward vertical surface into bizarrely shaped natural sculptures.

A 20-knot breeze raked the ridge, blowing a plume of spindrift far over the Kangshung Face, but overhead the sky was an achingly brilliant blue.