By Curtis Jones in climbing — 20 May 2008

Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 16

Rest, Eat & Hydrate @ Camp 4

Last night Mike said that we'd be sleeping in tomorrow and that breakfast would be bacon and eggs. Breakfast (even these freeze dried scrambled eggs) did not disappoint. And those five strips of bacon each was also quite nice. This almost makes me forget about the endless granola breakfasts.

Orders for today are to rest and eat and hydrate. If the weather is good tomorrow (and it's been behaving so far this morning) we'll move up to 17k camp (Camp 5). Mike believes that we'll not effectively acclimate at 17k camp due to the extreme cold and inhospitable conditions, so once we move we'll try to summit as soon as possible. Hopefully that'll happen before we end up like the RMI 1 team.

I just overheard Mike saying that a rescue from 17k camp is going on. The group camped beside us are all Seals and they'll be performing the rescue. If any assistance is needed then our guides are next in line. I guess we'll see the helicopter again. Can they not just land the helicopter at 17k camp and pick her up?

And it all makes sense now why that other group (the Seals) had identical parkas, tents, sleeping bags, climbing equipment, etc. Mystery solved. This really is a great place for people-watching.

I just counted 65 people ascending the headwall. Serious traffic jam. I bet there's nowhere to sit down at the top.

The four seal dudes have returned to their camp (from the ranger tent) to finish suiting up. It seems they were each fed a sandwich by the rangers. This is their first mountain rescure. I hope they've worked at altitude before, because if they start sprinting up to high camp, they'll never make it. Mike just told us to top off all of our water bottles, so that they (our guides, thas is) can be devoted to the rescue effort this afternoon, if necessary. This group being rescued summitted yesterday. All ten toes of this one lady are fristbit. The Seals have a 600' rope, so they're just going to lower her down the edge instead of using the fixed lines. I'm wondering whether they're going to use the fixed lines on the way up, too. If they move fast they'll just be waiting in line behind the sixty-ish people in front of them.

The Seal team has a bright orange rescue sled thing now. Ooh.

The rescue team is on its way up the headwall. Looks like five people in all (four Seals and one park ranger?). And just to clarify, I'm sure there are plenty of fat, lazy park rangers, but that doesn't seem to be the case much when you're a McKinley park ranger. Even our guides were in awe of some of the climbs these rangers had done.

Anyway, time for another sunscreen application.

Our guides are now on the park service payroll, in case they need to assist. I can see some folks on the west buttress descending towards Washburn's Thumb. Once the rescue team is at the base of the fixed lines the lady will be lowered via that 600' rope from Washburn's Thumb. I'm going to warm up my video camera. We don't usually get much excitement in these parts.

Doof. It's like 90 degrees in the tent. No need to warm anything.

After filling all of our water bottles, Fede is going to heat up a bunch of water to 104 degrees, into which they'll submerge this lady's toe-sicles.

Some strange looking guy just wandered into the now vacant Seal camp and took a picture. I consequently took a picture of him.

A group of four just broke to the right, off the trail, a little shy of the fixed lines. I expect that they intend to rescue the lady when she is lowered down. Maybe.

While sitting on the nice 14k camp toilet this morning, I chanced to look at my calves. I do believe that they are noticeably larger than their pre-trip size.

Rumor has it that bad weather is due to hit us on Friday - so the plan is to summit before then, or be prepared to weather out the storm. However, if the weather report is to be believed, we should be sitting in half a foot of fresh snow with high windows right now.

Okay, so the four people who broke trail and are heading up rescue gulley have nothing to do with the rescue. The people I saw at Washburn's thumb were the people in need of rescue. They beat the rescue team to the fixed lines and started their descent. The rescue people set up a rope below the fixed lines that they can use when sledding her down. Two of the rescuers will ski her down the rest of the way and then Billy and Mike will lend a hand hauling the sled to the medic tent.

It unfolded as planned. She is from Spain. She is expected to lose all of her toes. Her summit trip didn't return until 3am this morning.

What this trip is missing most (besides hot showers each night) is that of camp chairs. I had thought this earlier in the trip, but then I looked over at the seal camp, and they each have one. Looks luxurious. They don't have to lean up against snow banks when sitting. I think I'll acquire one before my Half Dome trip. Also, I'm only a little more than half way through one set of AA's for the GPS. I haven't needed to replace the batteries in the beacon, and the video camera claims to have another 270+ minutes of battery time remaining on the first battery. And I've been hauling several pounds of spare batteries. Oh well. Live and learn.

Dinner tonight is said to be soup. Seems like a dumb mountain dinner idea because one typically has to eat a lot of it to be full and most of that fulness comes from the broth, which really doesn't help much in terms of maintaining our weight. And soup is also messy.

Dinner was chicken and noodle soup. Ehh. Not enough calories to even lift my pack, much less carry it, loaded, up the headwall tomorrow morning.

We start the morning out with freeze dried scrambled eggs; mmm.

Our camp, on this fine morning

A nice view of Mt. Foraker; and it looks like some people have vacated their camps

Lots of people trekking up the headwall today; including the rescuers

Traffic jam on the headwall fixed lines

Washburn's thumb; you can see a couple of people descending from high camp; among them is the Spanish lady with the frost-bit toes; apparently she isn't entirely helpless as she is going to beat the rescures to the fixed lines

This creepy looking character started snooping around the Seal camp while they were off conducting the rescue; he took a picture of their camp, so I took a picture of him

Nosing around some where; I never did figure out what he was up to

He continues to wander around camp, looking at stuff; but he doesn't walk like he is burning time; he walks like he is snooping around with a purpose

Just because we're in the Alaskan wilderness doesn't mean you shouldn't call home to your wife ... and tell her horrific stories about people losing fingers and toes and 110+ mph winds

The Spanish lady, safely in the bright orange sled, gets skiied down to camp; meanwhile our three guides wait at the base of the hill to help run the sled over to the med tent

Mostly it was the skiier in front who just pulled the sled to the med tent; our guides tried to assist

The lady arrives safely at the med tent after descending almost the entire way from high camp with frozen toes

With all of the excitement concluded, we returning to resting, eating and hydrating

The Seal team returns to their camp after successfully helping the Spanish lady down from the fixed lines; and one of our standard pee-holes can be seen as well; lovely

I stare off at something...I don't remember what it was...I was probably thinking, "this would be an excellent place to construct a data center - there'd be no need for refrigeration; just wait till all those people back home hear about this place called Alaska."

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