Friday 14 June 2013

Day 17 - Move to High Camp 5 (Ha Ha) ?


For some reason I just don't feel that tired and so don't get to sleep until well after 2am. Oddly I don't feel that tired when I wake up at 04:45 am the next morning either. The skies are still and there are no tell tale snow spirals coming off the ridge as in prior days. It is though pretty cold which makes getting ready not particularly inviting - especially given the last minute cancellations of the past few days. This does not come however and I actually complete my packing and have an early breakfast. 

We are aiming to be the first ones off (as there are a lot of people heading up today) and quite surprisingly we manage that with a couple of private groups and our rivals following us out of camp within 10 or 15 minutes. We are leaving before the sun has come round so it is still very cold indeed but we should soon warm up once we start up the incline.




We head straight up the Headwall and unfortunately all the footsteps that had been so useful on our prior climb have melted away in the hot sun and / or been filled with the wind blown snow of the past few days. This makes the ascent much harder but a quick look down the slope at the large queues forming makes it all worthwhile. The clouds have completely cleared and we get some stunning views out over Alaska.



We head up to our cache and dig it out taking our deposits and leaving the remainder neatly arrayed for the others. The route from the cache to High Camp follows a long ridge with a 1,000m drop back to ABC on one side and en even bigger drop into a glacier that leads out of the mountains on the other side. It would certainly have been interesting (but doable) to have been up here in the winds earlier in the week.




View of the Headwall form the high ridge - with the path leading up from ABC

We are the first team to make it to the camp and it is great to see a place not full of other people. I need a bit of an extra walk at a decent pace as before to deal with the pace we have been walking at and then we dig a flat area and put up the tents and snow walls for the rest of the group as well as take in the spectacular views.



 



I really don't feel that I have acclimatised as well on this trip. The lack of any strain on the walks meant that my body never really got kicked into gear and forced to acclimatise. Something to remember for future trips.
Most people crash in the afternoon - a mix of tiredness from the day and lack of sleep the night before. At about 7:30 we meet for dinner and a chat over our summit day and then bed after a quick look at the start of our walk tomorrow.


We start on the right hand side heading up to the longest finger of rock and then an inclined traverse across to the shoulder in the middle of the picture. The problem with this is that it does not get the sun until later in the morning and so needs to be crossed when the ground is very hard and icy - a slip here can lead to a long slide down the slope with a big risk of cuts and sprained ankles from even a short fall as most people are roped together. This was named the autobahn after a few German climbers slipped to their deaths here - not the best way to name something for me.

Food:
Oatmeal / cereal and bagels
Freeze dried meal - Chilli Mac with Beef

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