Mt. McKinley (2011) - Day 21
Camp 5 to Camp 3
09:00 - Wes wakes up, by alarm, and calls his wife. Maybe this is why I'm not married, but I wouldn't have done this.
11:00 - We wake up again. The tent has no ice build up. I'm guessing that has something to do with a complete lack of proper hydration on our part. So, I guess there is one benefit to that.
I'm looking forward to being down from high camp, but the amount of walking is a bit daunting.
15:30 - We're on our way down from high camp (which actually starts with going up), and as fate would have it, we're immediately behind Adam's Mountain Trip group - the same group of three that peeled off of the autobahn right behind us yesterday and refused our help. And accused us of stealing their biners.
There's a heavy whiteout which has been increasing from this morning's blue skies. The air is nearly perfectly still and snow flakes are sticking to my arms. Yeah, I'm wearing a t-shirt while descending from high camp. This doesn't make any sense, but cold I am not. This weather is weird.
The first time we come to a stop behind Adam, he asks me with all the self-righteousness entitled to a "guide" who nearly killed his entire team to save face could possibly muster, "are you planning on stealing our biners again?" I barely answer him and we pass him on the far side of Washburn's thumb and don't see him again for the rest of the trip. Good riddance.
The remainder of the trek down the Buttress is uneventful. The snow pack, weather and crowds are all in our favor. We descend the fixed lines after a brief stop at the top of the headwall; no one else is on the fixed lines, which is a rare treat. I stow the ice tool and grab trekking poles for the slog down and through the snow to 14k camp, which is now considerably larger than it was when we last saw it.
After finding a couple landmarks we're able to locate our old camp and our cache. Or camp is occupied and they've maintained our kitchen - food on the shelves, a stove on the counter. No tarp roof though.
Wes digs up the cache and we start the tedious process of sorting through these things we chose to leave behind - extra food to give away, food for the down climb, garbage to haul down, camp booties (how I've missed them; these socks are really starting to smell), .... Our packs are already really heavy and we have so much more crap from this cache to add to the load.
With the food sorted, we proceed to walk around camp, pimping these free calories. The first group we come to, a group of two, has only been at 14k for an hour, has not yet retrieved their 13,500 cache, and takes nearly half the food. Another four or five stops and our bags of undesirable food are nearly empty.
The CMC, however, is very, very full.
I've binered and strapped and tied a duffel bag to the back of my pack along with the tent. This weight far exceeds the designed comfort level of this Mountain Hardwear South Col pack. We only have to deal with it from here to Camp 3, at which point we can retrieve our sleds and only a little more weight. In the mean time, we stop just a few minutes outside of Camp 4 and chuck the CMC bags into their final, peaceful, and calm resting place. That's not a crevasse anyone should hope to fall into.
20:30 - Its a perfect day for a descent. It always is. Since the weather below is often better than the weather above, I guess it always seems to be a good day for a descent.
We cruise by the 13,500 cache. That was a long time ago.
The traverse around the bend to Windy Corner is so stepped out that it resembles a narrow sidewalk. Even those retards who couldn't manage their sleds and had the awkward running belay would feel secure here. I'm more concerned with the landscape, which I'm quickly leaving behind, than I am my footing. This is crazy.
Windy Corner is perfectly calm. Of course. Thick clouds wait for us below. The stepped in path from hundreds of other climbers descends Windy Hill and abruptly disappears into the clouds. Complete whiteout.
It's not easy to navigate the Polo Fields even with the crampon marks and occasional wands. The ground is white. The sky is white. The air seems white. Everything around us is white. It's hard to say what visibility is because there's nothing to be seen. We trod on.
Eventually the casual trodding turns steep as we approach Squirrel Hill, but with all of the recent snow, the once icy steps are now packed snow, and the ice tool I'm holding now, instead of a 2nd trekking pole proves unnecessary. Unlike Windy Hill and Motorcycle Hill, from which a fall would, beyond scaring you, just land you at your desired destination a bit faster, Squirrel Hill slopes away from your destination, away from camp, and away from everyone. And in a whiteout, one could expect to be unseen for a long time. I miss the 2nd trekking pole, but it's nice to know that I wouldn't fall far.
Squirell Hill and Motorcycle Hill go by fast. There's a cigarette butt at the top of Motorcycle Hill and a small pile of ash. Stupid. I've seen more smokers on this one trip than in both previous years combined. Far more in fact. The US Army Rangers guy, Alex, was more often smoking than not. He hand rolled his own cigarettes though, and this one was clearly store bought.
22:00 - Camp 3 is smaller than Camp 4, but it has changed more. And the average age of climber is way younger than when we were last here. There's a kid wearing knee pads. Why? He complains to us that his friends suggested a single carry from Camp 1 to Camp 3 (which he also wanted), but now they're not feeling well. Waiting around and just enjoying the place doesn't occur to him, and he thinks the trip is pretty much over. He has 20+ days of food and they probably won't touch even 7 due to an inability to be patient and wait until the team is ready to move.
We eventually find our cache with the help of the GPS. Or old camp is completely run down. Our sleds are lying down on top of the cache, and our snow shoes are still buried. Someone dug up the sleds and then set them back? I don't get it.
23:30 - One of the few food items I hauled down from Camp 4 is nearly a pound of smoked Alaskan salmon. It accounts for around 1,500 very tasty calories. After Wes has topped off our water, we thaw the salmon and mix it in with some oriental flavored ramen. The combination of the fish, ramen and heat from the water is thoroughly rejuvenating. I'm still hesitant to commit to walking all the way back to base camp tonight, but it doesn't seem entirely out of the question now.
