By Curtis Jones in climbing — 28 May 2008

Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 24

Stuck at Camp 5

It probably took me four hours to fall asleep last night. But then I did finally sleep fairly soundly.

Mike, of course, ended that sleep with an announcement of breakfast and that there were 50 mph winds above, so, "don't bother putting on your boots or anything." So we had a couple packets of oatmeal each and some fig newtons. We all basically just stay in our tents. One volunteer from each tent jumps out for a moment, grabs the food, tosses over the empty water bottles to the guides and scurries back into the tent again. Later, re-filled water bottles are tossed towards the tents. It's just ... cold.

When I was tossing and turning last night, something in one of my jacket pockets was poking me. I squirmed around and pulled out a three musketeers and then a mars candy bar but that wasn't it - and then I found my cash and credit cards. It would seem that I forgot to move it into my pants pocket in Talkeetna. This is scary in the sense that I was contemplating ditching this jacket in the headwall cache when it looked like we weren't going to be able to move to high camp.

Dan just said, "seven more hours until hot drinks." Hot drinks are the high-point of every morning and evening for pretty much everyone in the group except me. I can't get over the amount of fuel we spend boiling water for that purpose. And the huge plastic garbage bag of hot drink mixes must weigh twenty pounds. Hot drink mix for twelve people for twenty-two days is heavy. We could live without it.

I decided to venture out of the tent and stretch my legs a bit. The very first sensation was the dire need to visit the CMC, so after I took care of that I resumed the leg stretching. I could't find Joel; and Paul and Jamie were in their tent, so I didn't disturb them. I went back to the point from which one can look down on 14k camp. Beautiful sight.

A ten-man group is heading up to Denali Pass, just for the exercise. Two rangers are on their way up with, "direct orders from George W. Bush to place these pickets!" I'm glad they find purpose in their work.

Crappy weather upstairs. Billy said that he thinks the weather will be good, despite the weather report, which claims it will continue to suck.

Dinner tonight was pasta primavera with way too much water. __ILLEGIBILE__

Had a good conversation in the tent with Dan, John and Jerry. Nothing more to report and not much paper to spare, so that's it for today.

Some climbers decided that it would be fun to stretch their legs and climb up to Denali Pass and back down. It was very windy up there, so they had no intent on summitting. Yeah, no thanks. Also, some rangers were heading up to replace pickets.

Climbers, heading up to Denali Pass.

More climbers. It was probably a good idea for altitude acllimitization. Not a lot of fun though. I prefer acclimitizing from my sleeping bag.

From high camp, looking out at the West Buttress proper and Mt. Foraker.

The West Buttress ... you can see some climbers making their way up to high camp.

Denali Pass. You can see that the group of leg-stretchers are nearly at the top. It takes at least a couple hours to get there, despite not looking like its very far.

John and Dan decide to make a High Camp kettle bell workout video. They put the video on YouTube. Check it out here. I hadn't actually watched the video before, but I'm watching it now. After the kettlebell workout, they have the CMC Squat workout. Brilliant! Remember, if you ever have the pleasure of using one: sit. don't hover. Sage advice.

Subscribe to A garage sale for your mind