McKinley Expedition: Breen & Team Cache Below Camp 2
Posted by: Jackson Breen, Lacie Smith, Raymond Holt
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Alaska
Elevation: 7,800'
Saturday, May 30th 8:30PM PST
Today we pulled our sleds from camp 1 to establish a cache just below camp 2. This was our first real elevation gain, and it feels like we’re nearing a turning point where in the coming days, the challenge of hauling loads and staying cool in the heat of the day will transition to hauling mostly just ourselves and keeping warm.
I’ve taken a hundred of photos already, but every time I return from a new place, I scan through my photos and realize that, in looking for a wider and wider angle lens thinking I could capture everything about that place, in fact I capture very little of what it’s like to be there. I feel this already here. The sky is deepest blue and the snow brilliant white, but our days are spent focused on the tiniest details which no photo will capture. The way the rope cuts a groove in the snow as it slides the length of each step. The texture of sunscreen layered on sunscreen layered on sweat. Tiny adjustments to backpack straps which cut either into our hips or into our shoulders. Analyzing every twitch of our guide’s arm to see if it signals the next rest break.
I struggle to conceptualize the innumerable tiny tasks and footsteps separating us from our goal next to the scale of the mountains which surround us. The mountains still seem impossibly big to me and, in alternating waves, oddly small. Glaciers stretch on for miles and seracs the size of houses hang thousands of feet above our heads. But houses align into city blocks, city blocks cluster into neighborhoods, and what hiker would think twice about passing through a few neighborhoods to get to the other side of town? I rationalize to myself that the next turn in the track is only as far away as the next stop light.
So too, the whoops of exuberance and sighs of commiseration between teammates stack into shared experiences, and these shared experiences stack into friendships. I’m grateful for these new friendships and for the opportunity to be here, even if it’s accompanied by separation from everyone back home and a certain amount of discomfort and trepidation.
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