It was nice to wake up at Vinson Basecamp. We started the stoves at 8:30 AM when it was nice and sunny, but still a little chilly with cold air flowing gently down the glacier. The consensus was for moving lock-stock-and-barrel up to Low Camp but we had a fair bit of organizing and packing to do first. We took a break from it all for a time and went to sit with ALE’s basecamp manager, Darren, while he briefed us on current route conditions, communication schedules, etc. At 2:20 we were ready to roll and went slowly out of basecamp, roped together, carrying heavy packs and dragging heavy sleds. It was a beautiful day, but we were a little surprised when a layer of cloud formed up. That ended up being a good thing though as without it we’d have baked in the sunshine. The terrain wasn’t so complicated or difficult for the most part but the couple of hills we had to chug up got everybody’s attention. Crevasses were lurking, but we had good route conditions and no dicey bridges to cross. We pulled into 9,200 ft at 8:20 PM as expected, and set to work getting situated at Low Camp. The cloud cover was kind enough right then to go away, giving us nice warm sunshine and big views of Shinn and Epperly, the next spectacular peaks to Vinson’s north. And with full visibility we could crank our necks to see Vinson’s giant western rock escarpment towering about a vertical mile above us. We ate a late supper and headed to bed, still in strong sunshine... we should get it until about 3 AM here. RMI Guide Dave Hahn

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