Woke up to a strong wind and wet snow whipping on the tent walls. It continued for many hours and I decided to stay put for the day.

My Neo-Air inflatable sleeping mattress has a puncture. No big surprise as this landscape has a lot of sticky thorn shrubs that I have to walk through. There are also thorns on the ground that are hard to detect before setting up the tent.

Because of the cold I am using a traditional Ridgerest sleeping mattress under the inflatable one to keep warm. It takes about five hours for the Neo-Air to deflate so that my hip touches the bottom one. I will have to repair the puncture soon. When it gets a little warmer, I will stop using the large Ridgerest to save weight and space. It is large and dangles at the bottom of the rucksack when I am walking. I will write a review of the two sleeping mattresses soon.

The clouds have cleared up this evening, and expect -16C tonight. I am happy I have two mattresses for the time being.