Camped at 11,200′

Hi Folks,

Sorry for the delay, but the team has been in motion and getting messages out has been delayed somewhat.

Jacob and the team have moved to the broad basin at 11,200′ (3413m) I described previously.  The thick clouds and steady wind dissipated somewhat and permitted them to push up to camp.  It sounds like they “single carried,” meaning that they loaded up all their food and kit and pushed up to the new camp.  As they only had an hour and a half to move, it makes sense to just load up and go.

One of the team, Mike, is unfortunately headed back to Base Camp.  Details are not totally clear as to what occurred, and I wouldn’t want to speculate, but he is not injured or anything like that.  Zach and Ben are accompanying him back to Base Camp and checked in from 7,800′ in a somewhat garbled message to report that they are all doing well and should be at the airstrip later today.  We have another team flying in this afternoon, and the weather looks like it is trending towards good enough to fly, so Mike should be back in Talkeetna tonight.

Here are some images to help you get a sense of the terrain that the team is traveling through.  Please let me know if this slide show format works for you all, as it is sort of new to us.

The images are as follows (not necessarily in order):

  • Looking down glacier past camp at 7,800′ (Mt Hunter obscured by clouds)
  • An image looking up glacier at “Ski Hill” past a couple of camps at 7,800′
  • An image looking over at an icefall below 11,200′ Camp
  • Climbers heading up to 11,200′ from about the point where the team was stuck in the foul weather
  • An “artsy” shot to show one of the more sublime reasons we go into the mountains- the qualities of light and shadow that don’t live elsewhere…

[slideshow]

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