Climbing Denali - Day 9

Blizzard day. The wind gusted, then it stopped, and I heard silence. That's when I knew our tent was buried in snow.

Not totally buried, but the drifts went well halfway up the sides. I woke at 6, not wanting to get up quite yet. The winds died down, but that was no guarantee we would be clear to proceed up to our next camp.

Slowly I pulled in more clothes into my sleeping bag. First my puffy vest, then my down booties. With those pre-warmed and donned, I pulled on my shell pants and got ready to leave the tent. My gloves spent the night rolled up in my boot liners to be already warm in the morning. I grabbed my camera and set out to see what camp looked like.

Half buried tents, drifts piled up, snow blowing horizontally, 11 camp was a winter wonderland. With no sign of Santa anywhere, I instead saw our guides starting to unbury their tent and our sharps pile. We chatted, I shot some pictures. It wasn't looking good for us to leave camp. The snow wasn't a problem, we can deal with snow. It was still the prevailing winds from the Southwest. They remained a headwind atop squirrel hill and the rest of the way to windy corner.

I secured my camera back in the tent and removed some of the drifted snow from around our tent fly. Then I climbed back in and gave Rhude Dog a weather update.

Hot drinks came shortly there after. Then the team got up to clean up our campsite. Walking paths to and from the tents and latrine were cleared first. Then we dug out around our tents. It's important to have air flow between the tent and the fly to keep it dry (and oxygenated) inside the tents.

Breakfast was hash browns with cheese and bacon. I helped deliver bowls to tents then hung around with the guides waiting for mine. We talked about the weather, how it was looking for today. Clark was reading about some alpinist adventures and Peggy was doing push-ups while 2-sleep Mike cooked.

As I topped my hash browns off with hot sauce I saw it was getting a little low. Halfway gone and we're not halfway through the trip yet. I floated the idea of trading with the other AMS team that was down to 3 guides and 2 climbers. 2-sleep Mike looked interested.

After breakfast everyone got up to help clean up the tents and camp. We could tell from the spindrift atop squirrel hill it was a low chance of us leaving camp today. Our new neighbors who arrived yesterday geared up for their back carry day to retrieve their cache.

2-sleep Mike and California stood around talking about gear. California works for Arc'teryx and Mike is a sponsored athlete by them. Mike is working with their designers on some custom pieces for his needs and they're hoping to turn them into a new line. We had a fascinating discussion about the major gear manufacturers, what's going on with their athlete teams and how the industry is always changing.

Feeling the need to move, I did some yoga on the packed snow between our tents. Definitely the most clothes I've ever worn to do yoga. Down booties, over boots, mid weight long johns, goretex shell pants, light weight base layer top, puffy vest, down jacket, hat, gloves and glacier glasses. It was good to stretch after spending so much time in tents and sleeping bags.

I climbed back into my tent, played around with my camera and ate some lunch. Half a bagel with peanut butter and jelly, some fruit snacks, cheese, peanut butter stuffed pretzel bites, and a few dried apricots. Then I read, took a nap, woke up and read some more.

By 3pm I was baking in the tent. In long johns and socks I couldn't stand to even wear a shirt anymore. We fully opened tent flaps and vented the vestibules. That sun is Strong!

For dinner we ate Mac and cheese with chicken.

In hopes of going to sleep more easily and comfortably, I staged things a little differently. Warm socks and long johns, no down booties. My puffy vest and hat hung from the laundry line above my head. I unzipped my sleeping bag from the bottom 2/3rds of the way up and most of the way down from the top. Now I could have a knee sticking out to vent some heat from my legs. By 8:30 it was cool enough inside to put my base layer top back on. After 9:15 the sun dipped below the ridge and it was cool enough to tuck my leg back in. I finished reading for the evening about 10 and slipped on my puffy vest for the night. Ear plugs and eye mask meant I was tucked in for the night. I read the first 400 pages of The Lies of Locke Lamora in just two days. Time for bed.
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Looking out my tent door to our neighbors just downhill. A lot of snow fell and blew around covering the tents and gear. 

This tent was almost completely covered. They're going to have a real challenge to get out of that one. 

Another look at our tents and how covered they are. Mountain Hardware Trango 3's are very common tents for high mountain expeditions.

The guides tents needed to be cleared off too. 

Sam, or maybe Rhude Dog removing some snow. It's hard to tell since their jacket's are the same color. They're cleaning the path to the latrine.