Click here to view the photo + video album for this part of the trip
After the push yesterday, I absolutely needed a rest day. Now, Colby’s decision to rest at Eleven Camp makes a whole lot of sense. Yesterday was manageable only because I had the strength for it. Unfortunately, I didn’t get as much rest as I’d hoped. I was hit by a painful issue I’d dealt with on Aconcagua: Chain stokes. It’s a condition where your body settles into its sleeping rhythm. Only, the body has adjusted to breathing at a certain rate based on the altitude you’ve been at. The issue is that you’re now at a higher altitude, which means less air, so your body eventually gets starved of oxygen, causing you to wake up gasping, as if you’ve been suffocated. Benign, but miserable. The real issue is it doesn’t just happen once. It hit me about forty times that night, preventing me from getting any real sleep; the instant I’d drift off, I’d get chain stokes.
The good news is that the weather has been fantastic, and the views phenomenal. Fourteen camp is located near a precipice dropoff of many thousands of feet, and just so happens to be right above a fast moving cloud layer. With Mt Foraker visible in the distance, the rolling clouds make for some seriously stunning scenery.
One amazing aspect of mountains like these is that they lack reference points with which to judge distance. Something that seems close may be incredibly far. Entire camps can be swallowed up in what seem like tiny dips in the terrain – which actually end up being huge valleys. I encountered this in Antarctica, and it seems that our astronauts had similar issues on the moon due to the same lack of reference points. Take the image on the left, for example. You can see climbers at the bottom of the Headwall, but can you see the ones who are nearly at the top? You may have to click on the image and zoom in, as they’re barely even visible! The face is far taller than the eye perceives.
No climb would be complete without good food, and as usual, delicious meals were served to me in my tent, along with hot water service on demand. These small things help so much to make life on the mountain more enjoyable and AMS is at the top of the game here. Imagine eating dehydrated meals for three weeks!
Since we had so much downtime, Jason and Grace’s guide, whose name is Porter, had us go through a refresher on fixed line travel. Our route tomorrow takes us up the Headwall – a very steep (60-65 degree incline) section of ice, where ropes have been fixed to anchors (hence fixed line). We’ll clip into those lines using our jumars (mechanical ascenders). That will securely attach us to the rope and give us another handhold to help balance and pull ourselves up. There’s some technique involved here, so the refresher was more than welcome. Things will be harder for me, wearing thick mittens to keep my hands warm. Dexterity is nonexistent, which makes opening carabiners and unlatching my ascender many times harder than it ought to be.
Despite the Chain Stokes, I’m really looking forward to this next part of the climb. Once we ascend the Headwall, we’ll officially be on Denali. All the climbing until now has only brought us to the West Buttress of Denali – we’re still not actually on the mountain itself, which should give you some idea of how gargantuan this peak is! I’ve heard that the views from the Sixteen Ridge are some of the most spectacular in the world. I really can’t wait!
Planetary Muffin Expeditions 