What a day, or should I say, night. Only a couple hours
after I last checked in, we woke up and packed up our entire camp—tents,
kitchen supplies, food, personal gear, etc…—and loaded onto our backs and
sleds. Apparently the weight per person is approximately 120-150lbs. It
definitely felt like a lot… We left camp around 3am and began the journey to
Camp I. Though only an altitude increase of 600ft, it is a long, rolling,
6-mile journey that often has to weave around massive crevasses.
But it’s also incredibly beautiful. The lower Kahiltna
glacier is massive and stunning. It’s a frozen sea of ice that stretches as far
as one can see, up to the mountains that rise up on either side and down South
towards the greenery we had left behind.
 |
| Night travel on the glacier carrying 120lbs+ of gear! |
The peaks of the Alaska Range are beautiful in their own
right. Mt. Foraker towers to the South, often with massive lenticular clouds
crowning its summit. (6 people attempted Foraker this season. None summited.) Mt.
Hunter rises right at base camp and is constantly aweing with its huge
avalanche slides and the tempting but dangerous Moonflower Buttress—one of the
world’s most famous and epic climbs, and het mountaineering equivalent of a
Siren.
Mt. Francis shows the path to Camp I, and it seems to never
end as you walk North next to it. Francis, because it is not as high as Denali,
Foraker, or Hunter, is often overlooked. This is unfortunate, because I hear it
is a beautiful peak and fun climb.
We arrived at Camp I at around 7am, just as the sun began to
start peeking over the mountains and the temperature began to rise. We’re going
to relax for the rest of the day and then put a cache in at 10,300ft tomorrow
early morning.
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