Entries from Mt. McKinley
Monday, May 27, 2013
At 6:00 am few climbers are stirring, preferring to crawl out of their tents when the sun is a little closer to chasing the cold shadows of the night away. But we had a big day ahead of us, and knew we would be comfortable having breakfast and hot drinks in our Posh tent.
A skiff of snow barely covered the tents and the gear we left outside, and a few more clouds lingered around for a short while after we lit the stoves, but the sun was also out and we knew it was going to be good enough to make our
carry up to 13,500'.
The crew was super quick getting ready this morning, eager, and certainly a little anxious about the climbing to come. After all, it was to be the steepest terrain we've been on. And as I suspected, everyone climbed well. A very slight breeze kept us comfortable until the last fifteen minutes when the wind stopped and things got hot. We got to our cache site at 2:00, a very respectable time by any measure. Everyone was tired but smiling and happy. The descent was just as smooth, allowing us to enjoy a few hours of well deserved R&R before dinner.
Our plan for tomorrow is to move up to 14,200' camp if we're all feeling good in the morning. Otherwise we'll take a rest day. If we do move up, we'll definitely be taking a couple of rest days there, which are key to our acclimatization to the elevation of camp.
After dinner we read all your posts! Thanks so much for the kind words and well wishes. It was another bright spot to an already good day.
Until tomorrow!
RMI Guides Brent, Logan and Leah
On The Map
Monday, May 27, 2013
We are resting today! Nothing much to report but a trip to the 6,000' drop into the Northeast Fork of the Kahiltna known as the "Edge of the World" where we took some photos. Otherwise we relaxed and enjoyed the perfect weather on our first full day rest of the entire expedition. The team is doing well and excited for the big push ahead! We are hoping to move to high camp tomorrow and make a summit attempt soon thereafter!
Ciao from 14k,
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
Sunday, May 26, 2013
We had a big day today and per the norm our team crushed it. We set out from 14 camp around 10:30 this morning hoping to get a cache of food, fuel, and gear in place for our high camp at 17,200'. Most teams are content caching somewhere along the ridgeline of the
West Buttress and picking up the needed supplies on their way by during the move to 17 camp. Our crew was strong enough to climb all the way up the buttress and place our cache right in the middle of high camp. This will play to our advantage on the move day, enabling us to travel with lighter loads thus conserving energy for our summit push. The day ended up being one of our longest and hardest yet at around 8.5 hours round trip but will serve as good training for the harder and longer days to come. Anyway, we are back in camp relaxing in the evening sun and looking forward to tomorrow's well-earned rest day.
All for now,
Billy
On The Map
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Mike Walter & crew rolled into 11,200' Camp tonight at dinner time looking surprisingly good for just having summited and descending from 17,200' today. They're planning on getting an alpine start tonight in order to descend the lower
Kahiltna Glacier while it's frozen.
They'll be drinking beers and eating steak soon.
Our hats are off to the entire team. Congratulations all!
RMI Guide Brent Okita
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Bagels fried in butter, slathered in cream cheese and accompanied with smoked salmon and bacon. It was the perfect fuel to start us out on the perfect day. Clear, calm skies prevailed over the
Alaska Range once again and shortly after 9:30 we were hoofing it down to pick up our cache at 9500'. Everyone cruised up and down, allowing us a quasi rest day upon our return to camp around 1:00.
A little afternoon training with our crampons and ice axes will serve us well as we start climbing some steeper terrain tomorrow. Motorcycle Hill, Squirrel Hill, the Polo Field and Windy Corner will be some of the areas we'll climb through on our way to caching a bunch of food and supplies at 13,500'. We're looking forward to an exciting and challenging day.
As we were preparing to settle in for our dinner of burritos we got a pleasant surprise when the first RMI trip arrived in camp after summiting on a perfect day yesterday. It is exciting to see our friends, and certainly gets us stoked for the climbing to come. We're hoping for some similar conditions when it comes our turn to go for the summit. But for now, we'll just concentrate on the matter at hand. Getting our cache to 13,500'.
We'll be getting up fairly early in order to get back to camp with time to relax and prepare for the next day.
Until then ...
RMI Guides
Brent, Logan, Leah
On The Map
Saturday, May 25, 2013:
Hi All!
Our team is safely back at high camp after a successful summit bid today! Our entire team made it to the top and we enjoyed near perfect weather and route conditions! We left camp at 9:30 this morning and were standing
on the roof of North America at 4:45 pm. After taking photos, exchanging high fives and hugs, and enjoying amazing views we descended towards camp in the evening glow of Alaska sunshine and with the anticipation of hot tea and a warm dinner.
We are all excited to begin our decent tomorrow and look forward to talking to all our friends and family in a few days!
Cheers!
RMI Guides Solveig, Mike, Ben, and the McKinley Team
On The Map
The sun doesn't set at
11,200' camp until after 9:30 sometime. Then it just passes behind a mountain to cast shadows on this place that we're now calling home. And we're soaking it all up after another nice day of climbing.
Today we made it to camp in under four hours, and for the first time had pretty reasonable sized packs. A cool down-glacier breeze offered us a change of pace from the sweat fest of the lower glacier, and I think most of the team welcomed the drop in temperature.
Pulling into camp in the early afternoon allowed us to walk into a vacated camp spot and relieved us of the tough work of building walls and excavating tent platforms. Most of us relaxed and enjoyed a well deserved break from our toils.
Another first for the trip: we enjoyed a fine meal from the comfort of our Posh House. This is a tent like thing that allows us all to sit, cook and eat, protected from the elements like the wind, cold, snow or even sun. It's cozy and makes it fun to just linger over a couple of hot drinks and enjoy each others company.
Tomorrow we'll be doing a back carry to pick up the cache we left there this morning. We're looking forward to a fairly easy day, and hopefully another great day of weather.
Before we sign off, Ayla wants to give a big shout out to her sister. Happy Birthday Eva! (By the way, your sister Ayla is a rock star - she's doing great.)
Until tomorrow ...
RMI Guide Brent Okita
On The Map
First and foremost, the biggest event of the day was Pete's birthday--
14K on a sunny day is not a bad place for a party.
Today was a bit a work and a bit of play, or rest anyway. We started by moving the 13,600' cache. We moved the cache and carried the cache to 14K. Resting at the cache spot before our carry, we could hear the water flowing underground, deep under the glacier. The trip back to camp was smooth and everyone arrived back far from flippy-floppy. We enjoyed a relaxing afternoon in the peaceful oasis of our surroundings. Though we all could certainly get used to that lifestyle, we're also eager to make the most of this weather and the team's strength, so we're heading off to bed soon to get ready for tomorrow's carry up the fixed lines.
RMI Guide Kel Rossiter
On The Map
Billy here checking in from
Camp IV at 14,200' after a strong showing from our team on a big move up. We enjoyed mostly clear skies and incredibly strong sun on the way up from our previous camp at 11,000'. In fact, the sun was a little too strong; while the ambient temperature hovered in the teens we felt like we were boiling for the majority of our climb. It's amazing what a little radiation can do. After all our hard work we were rewarded with an easy move-in to
Mike Walter's recently vacated camp. Sometimes you just get lucky. The high pressure is supposed to stick around through the extended forecast so we aim to keep on chipping away...
Wulpseeya!
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
On The Map
We woke early this morning, hours before the sun came up and warmed up our camp. After packing up camp in the shade, we made our way up to the head wall towards high camp. The sun finally warmed us up as we started ascending the fixed ropes up to the the top of the
West Buttress. Then we ascended the beautiful and exposed snow covered granite ridge into high camp. The weather was amazing, as were the views: 3000' feet down to our last camp in Genet Basin to our south and the same relief down to the Peters Glacier to our north.
We arrived at high camp (17,200') shortly after 3pm. We're all well rested and we're hoping for good weather tomorrow for a shot at the summit. We'll let you know how it shakes out.
RMI Guide Mike Walter
On The Map
Weary though we were last night, everyone bounced back after a good nights sleep. Looking up at
Ski Hill and knowing we needed to haul these loads up it had us a little anxious in the morning, but we all found the strength and spirit and we made it up to camp at 9,500' by 3:00 p.m.. We were pretty happy and relieved to get here, and it was wonderful to have another perfect day for it.
We've been enjoying the warmth of the afternoon to make camp, and perhaps more importantly, to relax a bit and even get out of our boots.
Tomorrow we start ferrying loads up the mountain, moving only half our gear at a time. This means that we'll be spending at least two days at a time at each camp. Tomorrows plan is to pack up camp and bring just a few days of food and fuel with us, caching the rest here in a deep hole and away from the ravens who have developed a taste for candy and ramen. We'll make camp at 11,200', then come back the next day with empty packs to bring up what we left. What does all this mean? Light packs! Ok, perhaps I should be realistic and call them 'lighter pack.'
Anyways, we're firing on all cylinders here and things couldn't be much better. What a treat it is to climb with a fun, strong team.
We'll talk again tomorrow.
RMI Guides Brent Okita,
Logan Randolph and
Leah Fisher
On The Map
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
-640x480.jpg)
-640x480.jpg)
Hey Derek,
Mate we are all following the climb here at DAL3, steamy Darwin,Australia. All those shuttle runs paying off now!! Good luck , be safe mate.
Posted by: Gareth on 5/28/2013 at 10:53 pm
Jeff (dad)
We love reading about your day. Keep it up!
Love Kenny, Alex and Sophia
P.S. I got a hit today dad - Alex :)
Posted by: Veronica Hooper on 5/28/2013 at 10:11 pm
View All Comments