Click here to view the photo + video album for this part of the trip
For some reason, the first two camps are numerical, while every camp after that is based on elevation. Don’t ask me why, that’s just the way it is. Eleven Camp is, as the name suggests, situated at 11,000 ft.
The trip from Camp 1.5 was slightly longer today at around three hours, with a bit more elevation gain. We started a bit later than the previous days, as there wasn’t as much crevasse hazard as we moved up to the beginning of the Upper Kahiltna Glacier. The weather today was chilly owing to the cloud layer that had moved in, but without wind. Wind is really the killer on a mountain like this. It turns a cold – but endurable – climb into one that’s both dangerous and hellish. Clouds aren’t a good sign though. We’re probably in for some bad weather in the coming days. Good weather never lasts long on a mountain like Denali…
Rolling into Eleven Camp, we got our first glimpse of things to come: the steep slope of Motorcycle Hill, which is our route up to 14k ft camp, as well as panoramic views of Alaska. The views just get better and better on this mountain, which makes me excited for what’s to come! Especially since this is officially the highest I’ve ever been on this mountain. Last year, I turned back just before Eleven Camp. I feel so much stronger this time; the difference is like night and day.
Colby doesn’t really like Eleven Camp, as it’s positioned directly under some gnarly-looking overhangs. Avalanche and rockfall danger is high, here, and we were forced to pick a campsite closer to the danger due to how packed the camp was. This is by far the biggest camp we’ve seen thus far. This camp felt like a base camp, but Colby says this is nothing compared to Fourteen Camp, where the National Park Service has its headquarters on the mountain. Even so, we saw many groups of climbers from all over the world. France and the UK especially had large numbers. Right next to our camp was a group of perhaps thirty British military guys (Royal Guard) who were climbing the mountain as training. It seems one of them even fell through a crevasse doing a carry up to Camp Fourteen. He was alright, but yikes!
Tomorrow’s going to be a rest day, which surprised me. I asked Colby whether we ought to capitalize on the good weather and push to Fourteen Camp tomorrow, but he insisted we should rest tomorrow. As it turned out, that happened to be an incredibly wise decision…
Planetary Muffin Expeditions 