The May 11th team has officially made the move to Camp 2! After caching supplies higher up the route the day before, today was all about relocating camp and progressing their position on the mountain.

The morning didn’t go quite according to plan. Heavy weather rolled in early, and the team made the call to wait it out rather than push into low visibility on glaciated terrain. Patience is one of the most valuable skills on Denali, and choosing to sit tight could be the difference between a smooth move day and a dangerous one. After spending the morning in their tents, the weather finally began to break in the afternoon. The team seized the window, broke camp efficiently, and made their push up the route.

Move days are different from cache days in a few key ways. Unlike a cache day, where the team carries a load up and returns to sleep at a lower elevation, move days are one-way — everything in camp comes with them. Tents come down, sleds get loaded, and the entire kitchen and living setup is packed up and hauled to the next camp. The loads are still heavy, but they’re lighter than they would have been thanks to yesterday’s cache, which is exactly the point. By having already moved a chunk of supplies higher up the route, the team’s move day becomes more manageable, the pace stays steady, and there’s less time spent exposed to the elements in transit.

With Camp 2 now established, the team will turn their attention to the next steps: back-carrying their cache up to Camp 2 in the coming days and continuing to work their way higher on the mountain. A late start but strong finish, and another camp officially behind them — a great day all around for the May 11th team.

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Interested in more information about conditions and happenings on Denali? Be sure to also check out the Denali National Park’s Denali Dispatches Blog where they post weekly Field Reports.