Snowed in at High Camp! B^}
Snowed in at High Camp! B^}
27 Jun, 08 - 18:45
Snuggled away in our High Camp(17,200ft/5244m) tent, we are deep inside the Zulu 9 sleeping bags. It's supposed to go down to -25F/-32C tonight...so we need to keep warm!
We got B-L-A-S-T-E-D off Denali's West Buttress last night. What started as a totally clear and lovely day turned into ugliness.
Phill Michael getting blasted at 18,000ft
Dawa put it best:
'I done naayyver been seen wedder like this before!'
Well...I have...but that was while I was delivering newspapers in Edmonton when I was ten years old. %^]
Snowed in at 17,200ft/5244m
We got back to our 'snowed in' tent at about 8pm last night...and crawled into our bags. It had snowed about 4 inches that afternoon. The image you see of us smiling is one where the smiles are frozen onto our faces. =^]
Frozen Smiles of 'Defeat'
Despite having to postpone our ascent to Denali's summit...we are our usual jovial selves. =^)
It took us about two hours to get 'warmish'...and we both drifted off to shivering sleeps.
We awoke at about 10am this Friday morn to more snow. We were thinking of breaking camp this afternoon, but the forecast calls for heavy snow tonight...dissipating to less by Saturday. I put a satellite call into Talkeetna Air...and they aren't flying today...and may not be flying people off the glacier until Saturday afternoon...at the earliest.
We HAVE to be in Albuquerque on Monday(June 30th)...so getting out of here we must. (insert Yoda laugh here)
We have to travel 10,000 vertical feet and 14miles to the 7200ft base camp (where we fly back to Talkeetna from)...so we've decided to 'pull stakes' (out of what will probably be a foot of new snow) on Saturday morn and ridgewalk/downclimb/sled/trudge our way back to the airstrip by Sunday morn. We'll do it. B^]
At this very moment, Chris is winging his way back to sunny California...Alex is probably wearing a coconut for a hat in Hawaii...and Dawa and I are listening to a freight train (the wind) go by our tent.
It's only 630pm on Friday right now...so after a bit of food and hot drinks, I might upload another dispatch that will include some more images from yesterday and today. Time will tell.
I trust that anyone reading this dispatch is starting their weekend off in a much warmer and less windy place than we are! B^}
Until Soon
Phill =^)
PHILL MICHAEL | Expedition Leader and Summit Climber
Everest Freestyle Expedition/Secret Spot Seven Summits
SecretSpot.NET
SecretSpot7Summits.com
SecretSpotEverest.com
Blog.SecretSpotEverest.com
27 Jun, 08 - 18:45
Snuggled away in our High Camp(17,200ft/5244m) tent, we are deep inside the Zulu 9 sleeping bags. It's supposed to go down to -25F/-32C tonight...so we need to keep warm!
We got B-L-A-S-T-E-D off Denali's West Buttress last night. What started as a totally clear and lovely day turned into ugliness.
Phill Michael getting blasted at 18,000ft
Dawa put it best:
'I done naayyver been seen wedder like this before!'
Well...I have...but that was while I was delivering newspapers in Edmonton when I was ten years old. %^]
Snowed in at 17,200ft/5244m
We got back to our 'snowed in' tent at about 8pm last night...and crawled into our bags. It had snowed about 4 inches that afternoon. The image you see of us smiling is one where the smiles are frozen onto our faces. =^]
Frozen Smiles of 'Defeat'
Despite having to postpone our ascent to Denali's summit...we are our usual jovial selves. =^)
It took us about two hours to get 'warmish'...and we both drifted off to shivering sleeps.
We awoke at about 10am this Friday morn to more snow. We were thinking of breaking camp this afternoon, but the forecast calls for heavy snow tonight...dissipating to less by Saturday. I put a satellite call into Talkeetna Air...and they aren't flying today...and may not be flying people off the glacier until Saturday afternoon...at the earliest.
We HAVE to be in Albuquerque on Monday(June 30th)...so getting out of here we must. (insert Yoda laugh here)
We have to travel 10,000 vertical feet and 14miles to the 7200ft base camp (where we fly back to Talkeetna from)...so we've decided to 'pull stakes' (out of what will probably be a foot of new snow) on Saturday morn and ridgewalk/downclimb/sled/trudge our way back to the airstrip by Sunday morn. We'll do it. B^]
At this very moment, Chris is winging his way back to sunny California...Alex is probably wearing a coconut for a hat in Hawaii...and Dawa and I are listening to a freight train (the wind) go by our tent.
It's only 630pm on Friday right now...so after a bit of food and hot drinks, I might upload another dispatch that will include some more images from yesterday and today. Time will tell.
I trust that anyone reading this dispatch is starting their weekend off in a much warmer and less windy place than we are! B^}
Until Soon
Phill =^)
PHILL MICHAEL | Expedition Leader and Summit Climber
Everest Freestyle Expedition/Secret Spot Seven Summits
SecretSpot.NET
SecretSpot7Summits.com
SecretSpotEverest.com
Blog.SecretSpotEverest.com
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