By Curtis Jones in climbing — 23 May 2008

Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 19

Stuck at Camp 4

My best night of sleep yet. I don't know what was different - maybe we finally have the vents adjusted correctly and that might also be why I'm not getting those huge amounts of ice crystals building up on my sleeping bag or maybe its not getting as cold at night? That's doubtful.

I woke up well rested at 08:30 and decided to go pop on into the cook tent and see what was going on, but the cook tent was still collapsed. The wind is kicking around pretty good. I'm glad we're not at 17k camp right now. That'd be pretty miserable. I ducked into the igloo to pass some time in there, but that got boring, so I headed back into my tent. Aside from the wind kickcing snow around, its not to terrible outside.

When I was talking to Paul and Jamie yesterday evening, they mentioned that they brought 0.5L pee bottles because, "we're never going to need to pee a whole liter over night." The first time proved them wrong, and they now describe the half liter bottles as "useless".

When this snow (err, "wind event") clears on Sunday / Monday, there's going to be a ridiculous line of people going up the headwall. I suspect that we'll end up building a camp from scratch up there - unless we leave at 6am ... which doesn't really seem worth it. Too cold. Alright, I'm just rambling because I don't have anything more entertaining to say, and I'm stuck in the tent without anything to do. More later.

I made it to the kitchen before anyone else (besides the guides) and volunteered my assistance in running down to base camp and back with Baron and whomever, but Mike said that there wasn't enough time. I guess the forecasted end to this storm has bene shortened. He also said that there was a chance that we might be moving to 17k camp tomorrow, but I suspect he was just trying to keep our hopes up or something. Which isn't really necessary. The longer we live/breathe/eat/hydrate at 14k, the easier it'll be for all of us to summit.

Breakfast was eggs and bacon again. Not to sound ungrateful, but I never feel quite right after those meals. Maybe its the 234% DV of cholesterol in each package of eggs? Mike said that this was the last bacon and egg breakfast. More granola now?

I fell into our now snow-filled quarry when walking to the cook tent this morning. I don't think anyone saw me fall. It was pretty pathetic.

I wish I had a camp chair. My back wishes I had a camp chair.

It's cold and windy today.

I over-heard JR (of the RMI 3 group) this morning telling his client that they would be doing a back-cary from Windy Corner today. Brutal. Wes heard the same thing and when JR was telling one of his clients to dress appropriately for 50+ mph winds, Wes just zipped up his sleeping bag and sunk further into it. I think JR was being a bit dramatic about the 50mph. Still, I'm glad I'm not doing a back carry today. Good luck to them!

How this tent continues to hold its form in these winds is entirely beyond me.

I understand that almost everyone at 17k camp came back down to 14k camp to yesterday - including the rangers - except for two or three people who chose to remain up there. I hope they know what they're doing.

A quote from Wes, I think it was: "What happens in the igloo, stays in the igloo."

I heard Dan and Wes getting out of their tent to do some construction work (between gusts of wind), so I got out too. First we built a wall around the entrance of their tent (and then built it again a few minutes later when the wind knocked it down), so that the wind wouldn't blow directly into their tent. And I shoveled out between our two tents because the snow there was starting to really weigh down on the tents.

Afterwards we did a food swap in the igloo. I got some gummy bears and cajun nuts in the trading. It's nice to have a little variety.

Dan and Wes have very little snack food left if we expect to hang here until Sunday. I'll probably give them some of my protein bar in a day or two if we're still sutuck here.

Back to the tents until dinner.

Mike shouted out a request for assistance in getting a better cook tent wall established and after a little while I went out to help. Shortly thereafter we had dinner (ramen and rice soup), which probably provided fewer calories than we burned trying to stay warm in the cook tent while eating for an hour.

The rangers said that gusts today reached up to 60mph, and we should expect 30 - 40 mph winds tonight at 14k, and 85 - 90 at the summit. Brutal. Ear plugs are my friends. There's something about listening to another guy breathing at night that prevents me from sleeping - at all. It's disturbing somehow. The weather forecast still calls for this storm to last through Sunday (two days), so I don't expect we'll be moving until Monday. We can clearly see what the wind is doing (by how much snow it is kicking up into the air) all the way from the top of the fixed lines, across the West Buttress, over to 17k camp, and we don't want to be up there right now.

There's this one, small yellow tent here at 14k camp, all by itself, with no wall or any such protection surrounding it. And it was standing firm in the wind. Billy told me what kind of tent it was, but I've forgotten. I want one.

I went over and visited Joel this evening, right before dinner. He threw a snow ball at me but missed. The one wall that we did not assist his group in constructing, fell down twice today.

My pee bottle is MIA. Someone is going to be unsettled when he opens it and takes a whiff. I can still hear the wind against the tent with my earplugs in. Oh well. Going to try to sleep now.

The weather at camp was relatively hospitable, while up above it was evident that the wind was blowing a lot harder.

At the top of the headwall, the wind was kicking up the snow.

Mt. Foraker.

Relatively hospitable, is what I said. We still got gusts of wind blowing through camp. The wind itself wasn't bad, it was the snow that it blew everywhere that was annoying.

As you can see here....

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