Click here to view the photo + video album for this part of the trip

Last year, the journey to Camp One took four hours and utterly destroyed me. This year… we did it in under four, and I felt like we were moving slow. Moving to the mountains of Colorado and training every day for the past six months made more of a difference than I thought possible. We were at almost 7000 ft, yet it felt like sea level as I shoveled snow to prepare our tent site. Even Colby was impressed at my stamina!

Luckily, I had the right insoles this time around, and my boots performed flawlessly. I was also carrying less weight. Last year I carried about 110 lbs from Base Camp, which was almost my entire body weight. This year I was at about 65 between my sled and my bag – much more manageable.

We started early to make use of the cooler temperatures. The sun never really sets up here, but unlike Antarctica where the sun just spun around the sky at the same altitude, the sun here dips up and down, and when it goes behind a mountain, temperatures plummet. It might be 85 degrees in my tent under the sun, and 0 degrees when it goes behind a mountain. The temperature swings here are the most severe I’ve ever experienced.

That’s why we start early – to use the freezing of the ice overnight to our advantage. You see, the lower Kahiltna glacier has crevasses. Big ones, and a lot of them. In Antarctica, all the crevasses are exposed since it never snows there, but here, they’re all covered over. Which means you never know when you’re walking over one. People can and do fall through the snow, which is why we’re traveling on a rope team of four. If one person falls, the others brace and arrest the fall. Without a rope, glacier travel is a death wish. But even with a rope, it’s better not to fall at all, and ice can bear more load than snow. Most teams either travel on a night schedule on the lower mountain, or leave early in the morning as we did.

The only issue with this plan is that the temperature is colder. A lot colder, which is an issue for my hands. But this time, I bought the best set of expedition mittens you can buy, and I put hand warmers in them for good measure. My hands were toasty the entire time, even if it meant I had the dexterity of a walrus.

Camp One was actually about the same size as Base Camp, if not slightly larger. It’s still early season, so there are fewer climbers on the mountain. At this point, we can’t see Denali at all – it’s hidden by other mountains we need to climb to get to Denali. Everything up until 14000 ft camp is actually not even on the mountain! All this just to get to the starting line!

But I was feeling strong, and thanks to having such a small team, we’re not doing any carries on this climb. A carry is when you haul a load of gear up to the next camp, drop it off, then return to your lower camp to sleep. The next day, you’ll take another load of gear, but this time you’ll sleep at the higher camp. In essence, you’re climbing the mountain twice. It’s brutal, especially on a mountain like Denali known for its weather. No porters here, but doing single carries really made the experience a lot more fun.

Continue to ‘Camp One and a Half’