Weather: cloudy

It’s the long march we are going to walk down all the way to base camp from camp 4.

Atmosphere is not great, Abdul and Daniel have turned quiet and distant. I guess we all react differently but it’s important to put things in perspective, we are safe and that’s what matters. Denali will be there for the coming millions of years, not us.

We are off around 11am and hit the descent from the mountain. Many groups and expeditions are coming up the mountain in agony. It reminds us weeks before – except for the agony part – the mountain is getting busy. Kai, Pat, Xav and I are in a super mood. We are now keen to get down. We have given all we had to give, now it’s time to go back to Talkeetna and say goodbye to Denali, but not so fast!

Down thousands of meters in a day. We take a break at camp 2 to dig up the cache and rig our sleds for the rest of the way.

A few hours later, we take a dinner break at camp 1. The view on Denali is impressive in the setting sun. After dinner in the snow, a change of socks for the coming 4 hours we hit the trail with our sleds for the final push to base camp.

We walk until 1am. We have been down climbing for over 12 hours and are knackered. It is starting to snow as we reach base camp and need to setup the tents in the snowfall with little 1am visibility. We are efficient and the tent shapes up in minutes. We don’t bother with digging snow anchors, we use the parachutes and rig ice axes and snow pickets through them to speed up the process. The goal is to fly out tomorrow so no need to bother. A quick holler to the guides to see if we can help them and we are off to bed.

We fall asleep dreaming of comfortable beds In talkeetna the next day, fresh food, long warm showers, reconnecting with our loved ones, I can’t wait to reach Sarah, but all this wonderful thoughts will have to wait…