Sunday, June 16, 2013 We woke this morning to another unbelievable day at 17,200' camp on Mt. McKinley. The sun was shining, there was no wind blowing, and folks were comfortable in soft shell coats eating their grits and Pop Tarts. If you don't have a frame of reference for how unbelievable that kind of weather is, it's more typical for people to be wrapped in every puffy coat and pant that they brought to the high camp, while the wind threatens to blow you right off the mountain. Needless to say, we were psyched. We started walking down the buttress route soon after breakfast, and make excellent time across the knife-edge, exposed walking from camp to the top of the fixed lines. A short, technical descent down the lines had us all sweating by the time we reached the bottom, and we stripped down to base layers for the moderate descent back to our cache at 14,200'. After we grabbed all the group food and gear, we loaded heavy packs and headed down in the scorching sun towards our old stomping grounds at 11,000'. We arrived in calm, clear skies, and we quickly got up tents and got out of the sun. We're drinking a ton of water, looking forward to the group food fry of leftover cheeses, meats, and breads this evening, and getting ready for the 3am launch down the glacier tomorrow morning. Hopefully we'll have the weather to fly back to showers, greasy burgers, and cold beer tomorrow. Until then, stay tuned for the latest and greatest from the team! Hasta luego, RMI Guides Tyler Jones, Garrett Stevens and the sore but happy team

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