Climb up to 16,400 ft

The team had another productive day today. They carried a load of mostly food and fuel up to about 16,400 ft. They did this to get a bit of acclimitization and to get some of the weight of their loads up on the ridge so that when they are ready to move to high camp they can save a bit of effort. Tomorrow they plan to take a full rest day to recharge, recover, and acclimate before pushing up to high camp and on for the summit. Chris said a couple of the climbers are fighting a bit of a cold, so tomorrow's rest day will be welcomed by all.

Camp 3, 14,000 ft

The team moved up to Camp 3 yesterday, and had another nice day on the mountain on Friday.

Paul called in for today's post, he does an excellent job of explaining what they are doing up there today.

Carry around Windy Corner

They had another beautiful day today and were able to carry a load of gear to 13,500 ft, just around the notorious "Windy Corner". Chris said it was anything but windy today, they had sunshine, calm weather and it was actually pretty warm up there.

Most importantly it was Pizza night tonight, always a favorite.

Here's Madhura with tonights call from Camp 2.

Beautiful Day at 11k

Chris called in this afternoon and said it's been a beautiful day. They had a relatively relaxing day today, doing what is called a "back carry". Two days ago they carried a load from Camp 1 at 7,800 ft up to about 10,500 ft near Kahiltna Pass. Yesterday they passed this cache of gear on their way up to Camp 2 at 11,200 ft. Today's job was to go back down the hill and pick up the gear. It usually takes about 15-20 minutes to walk down to the cache, and about 1-1.5 hrs to carry it all back up the hill. We use this strategy to break up the big load carrying days into 2 smaller days, and it allows the climbers to acclimate to the increasingly higher altitudes. A back carry day is really an acclimitization day with a bit of activity.

Everyone is doing great up there, and passed on a hello to Kate who is probably home by now.

Here's the evening update called in by Lance. The sat phone cut's out a bit for the last part of the call, but you can get the idea.

Camp 2, 11,000 ft

Chris called in this afternoon from Camp 2 at 11,000 ft. They had a great day and everyone was moving really well.

Kate Etinger has had to come down off the mountain, unfortunately she has a cold/flu type of illness and isn't feeling very well right now. She flew out this afternoon and already got a flight out of Anchorage for this evening.

Camp 1, 7,800 ft

They moved right on up to their first camp early this morning. After waiting in Talkeetna for 4 days, they were anxious to begin climbing the mountain. They left very early this morning for Camp 1 to arrive before the sun warmed up the snow covered crevasse bridges.

Tomorrow they'll get another early start and carry a load of food, fuel and extra gear up to about 10,500 ft where they will dig a hole in the snow, bury the load, and cover it back up to keep the curious ravens out of it. This will be the strategy for most of the rest of the climb, carry a load up high, return to camp, move up high the following day. This accomplishes 2 important goals; 1. acclimating, and 2. spreading the giant loads over two days of work.

Here's a video/slideshow from last year that will give you an idea of the people and the places we're talking about.

Base Camp

They finally got to fly to base camp today!! The weather cleared this afternoon and the fleet of planes took off. Our group was the first in line and they were thrilled to finally get on the plane and are setting up camp for their first night on the glacier this evening.