May 11

Altitude: 3300 to 4100 meters

Weather: sunny, cold (-10 to -15), cloudy, snow / yes, all in one day

Time climbing: 7h37

Rushing the morning packing, I feel a little overwhelmed with what to pack. We are going to cache at 4000 meters and come down and need to plan for the coming days. What is cached is obviously gone for a while so it’s critical to plan carefully. The point is to carry as much as possible and leave it in the cache so tomorrow we can carry a little less when we move camp for good.

Which jacket do I cache? Gloves? Summit attempt gear? Food? I am totally confused and running around like a headless chicken. I surprise myself for feeling overwhelmed as I usually keep my composure when packing. There is not a right or wrong way. Some climbers cache summit gear because they consider they can withstand harsh conditions without it, some swear that they never cache gear in case a major arctic cold front hits…what’s the answer? I ask Xavier and Pat and make up my mind. I am also going to cache Xavier birthday whisky bottle and liquor chocolates that Pat and I bought in Anchorage. (Xavier will turn 41 in a few days, birthday in the mountains, it doesn’t get any better than that. At the time I thought I could carry extras and now I realise that every additional item is pure luxury and it ads to the overall carrying weight.

We get going and the first hill – motorcycle hill – is a navigation through crevasses. It requires careful communication as we are 4 on the rope and the whole idea is that if one of us falls the 3 others can arrest a crevasse fall. It’s fascinating and scary.

But it soon becomes brutal: very heavy packs, very steep climbs, the uphill hand holds the ice axe, the downhill hand a trekking pole. Our training is once again paying off. I recall all my training with heavy weights, my trail runs with Sarah working on endurance and my Singapore & Hong Kong stair climbs. It’s a privilege to have so many hours available to reminisce happy moments.

We reach ‘Windy Corner’ after 4 hours of climbing. It is very ‘windy’ and brutally cold, within 3 minutes of removing my gloves to fix my gear, my hands are frozen and I have to switch to my heaviest mountain gloves and get the blood flowing again. But it’s too late and it will take me about 1/2 hour to get my hands warm again. I have waited too long. There is no pardon on the mountain, you do things the right way or suffer the consequences immediately and for a while.

After 5 1/2 hours of climbing, we are now Caching at 4000 meters. Kai, Lexie, Patch are digging a deep hole. We have one hour watching the surrounding mountains with awe and an immense respect for nature. The Alaska range is phenomenal. The séracs, hanging glaciers, bergschrund, crevasses, rock faces helps us reflect on our role and position within nature.

We start the way down. Pat is now leading. We are flying, crampons hitting the fresh snow, wide stance to avoid hitting our boots with our crampons, the necessary ‘cowboy stance’: bum low – wide feet. The final stretch is in total whiteout, Pat is navigating between crevasses, checking with his trekking pole that the way is safe. We make it back to camp, layer up quickly as the cold engulfs us. It’s snowing again.

Removing crampons, Changing to dry socks, opening the sleeping bad in the tent for final drying, this is our daily routine. Dinner, listening to daily weather report with horror: ‘highs of -25F at 14,000 feet camp’ etc.

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