Day 58
   
   6/24/01
   14,200' Camp, Denali
   
   During the night it got quite frosty.  Exhaled breath froze to the
   walls of the tent and any breeze or movement inside caused showers of
   ice crystals to fall everywhere, including on our faces.  How rude!  But
   this was a Stevenson 2R, and at $625 it was not exactly "The Winter of
   Our Discount Tent" (apologies to the Steinbeck novel).
   
   It took the usual 2 hours to melt snow, fuel our bodies, break down
   camp, pack up the sleds, and get under way.  There is a degree of
   surety required on gear when mountain climbing - safety equipment needs to be
   fully prepared, and every item needs to be tightened down to make sure
   it does not come loose later.  Even noncritical items can become more
   than a mere annoyance if they force you to stop and tend to them while
   you're on a steep slope.
   
   Presently we came to the 11,200' camp, where we deposited a cache of
   fuel, excess gear, and snowshoes (this later turned out to almost be a
   mistake).  The section ahead was steep and we would need to switch to
   crampons to climb it.  Also, it was too steep for heavily loaded
   sleds, so we swapped the load to backpacks.
   
   After passing the so-called "motorcycle hill", several crevasse fields
   had to be passed.  Some looked vicious, capable of swallowing entire
   teams without so much as a burp.  Others are more subtle; just a
   telltale dip in the snow crossing the route, sagging only a few inches.  But,
   like the proverbial iceberg with most of it's size hidden, these
   extended dozens of feet down and would very likely be fatal to a solo climber
   with no rope team to pull him out.
   
   Now we can really tell that the air is getting thin, our breathing
   labored and our progress taxed.  We'd climbed faster than the
   recommended rate of 1,000 feet per day to acclimatize, and when we finally
   pulled into the 14,200' camp it is clear that we need to spend a few days
   here to avoid altitude sickness.  I talked to a Ranger who was stationed at
   the camp who scolded me for climbing too fast, and said no other
   climbers this season had come up as fast as us.  But both Mike and I
   had done this sort of thing before, and it hadn't been a problem, so we didn't
   feel we were outside our abilities.
   
   We dug in camp, taking extra care to anchor down the tent.  Storms can
   blow at a high intensity for many days straight on this mountain, and
   having tent blow away would be more than merely annoying.

Yesterday - Today's Photos - Tomorrow