The May 11 team had an active rest day today as they returned to Windy Corner at 13,200′ (4023m) to retrieve their cache. They are now fully supplied at Camp 3. The team has been enjoying some unseasonably warm weather, time to bust out those Hawaiian shirts! They plan to cache at 16,200′ (4937m) tomorrow. This will entail the team’s first time up the “fixed lines”. It typically takes teams about 2 hours to ascend from camp the over 1,000′ elevation gain to the bottom of the fixed lines. Here, they arrive at the “bergschrund”. A bergschrund marks where the top of a glacier meets the steep head wall of ice above and sloughs away from it, forming an expansive crevasse. The fixed lines are a rope of about 600 feet, anchored to the ice with several deeply buried anchors along the way. Climbers clip ascenders into the rope and use this tool to move up the fixed lines. The ascender is clipped to their harness, and prevents them from sliding backwards. Especially important when you have folks below you!
Here’s guide Jesse Yon:
