Lead guide Brian Muller called in an update on the June 3 West Buttress Team, back at Camp One at 7,800′. The team is making quick work of the lower glacier, traveling on an early morning schedule. Yesterday, the team set their first cache site of the trip, a cornerstone of expedition climbing. They will continue to set caches (and “backcarry” to retrieve them) throughout the climb, in order to effectively make their loads lighter while moving between camps. Once they move up to Camp Two, they will come back down to retrieve the cache when the weather allows.

The team even got to enjoy pizza dinner back at camp to refuel after a hard day’s work, and prepare for the move up to Camp Two at 11,200′. While the team was able to lighten their loads with leaving supplies and gear for later on in the climb at the cache, they will still have a fairly steep ascent up several punchy hills, gaining close to 3,000′ of elevation throughout the day.

Here’s Brian!

recording