Dave Luther called in after the team spent much of the night hiking up to 10,000′ on the Kahiltna Glacier to put in their first cache of the expedition.  “Caching” is when you carry some quantity of your total supplies (roughly half+) and stash it for the days to come.  On Denali, we dig deeply into the snow and bury our caches, as the pesky ravens that are found at literally all elevations are renowned for burrowing up to a meter to steal your treats.

After burying their cache, the team descended back to the camp of the previous night, in this case, the 7,800′ camp.  This system of carrying high and sleeping low is a proven strategy on big mountains, as it allows you to both move your mountain of supplies and also build you acclimatization for the next higher altitude.

The team will carry loads ahead of their camps all the way to high camp, caching just below their next camps the day before moving up to those higher camps.  After moving and establishing themselves at the next higher elevation, they will drop back down to retrieve their caches, which makes for a sort of active rest day, because those days are pretty easy.

Here it Dave!

recording