Cybercasts

The crew cached at 10.5 today! We saw specklebelly geese on the glacier! Making moves. Grant says Hi Mom!

Altitude Anonymous has flown onto the mountain and walked their way to the base of ski hill! Team name picked, muffins ate and sleds rigged!

Spearheaded by Emma Lyddan, the final team of the season is changing into their boots and preparing to fly in to base camp first thing this morning. Next post will be from the glacier!

The Last Seconders crawled out of our tents at 17,000ft. The sun had been out for several hours but frost still hung on every surface inside our tents. We looked out and no other expedition was stirring. The guides yelled the expedition out of their tents and fed breakfast of a thin but nourishing mash of grits and bacon. “DOOOOOOON” a voice called out from a nearby tent after the team had retreated back inside to eat.
“What is this!?”
“It’s gruel.”
“…”

The last seconders struck camp and got in line behind a slow team on the West Buttress ridge. We took breaks every 15 minutes. It was no point to wait in line standing on technical terrain.

We ended up hours on the fixed line standing in traffic. The team surfaced our 14k cache and headed out with sleds. The sleds were a burden that often got out of control on the descent. As we managed our sleds down, a group of ski mountaineers zipped by each managing their sled in their different way. One skied alongside it like a loyal hound. One dragged it behind them upside down on the ice. Another just picked the sled up like a small calf and skied down pizza style.

We got to C2 around windy corner and surfaced our cache and had an endless pizza and cheese burger meal. We marched into c2 cursing and tripping on our sleds.

Some where between C2 and C1 It became the 16th of June.

We got into C1 the team was on fumes and we reloaded water from our last canister fuel stoves.

We lurched into base camp at 6am. We dragged our sleds past dozens of sleeping bodies on the snow. We went right to the flight hut.

“One flight out for 9 please.”
“Ok, you’re first in line at 9am”
“Thanks”

The dozens of sleepers started to stir, realizing the way to get in line was not just sleeping and waiting for something to happen.

Last Second was first in the air. Every expedition member looked out as the Alaska range disappeared to tundra and forest and riverlands.

A few hours later the team was eating pizza, then at the Fairview ringing the bell. Whoever rang the bell had to buy drinks for all those in the vicinity. The bell rang twice from our generous team.

There were speeches, photos, hugs, lots of drinking, over our shared experience within that historic drinking hole that that had seen likely tens of thousands of such gatherings over a century.
Our team sang “Dead or Alive”, by Bon Jovi

Final hugs and handshakes were given and by 3am, the last of The Last Second had gone to bed, some of them for the first time in 48 hours.

We got up early and roused the climbers in the early light. There was groggy affirmations of waking up and of course complaints and the expected foot dragging on brand with the Last Seconders. We wanted to push on ahead first out of camp but we were second in line on the Autobahn. The team was lucky it was a balmy single digit positive temperature wise with light winds. We still went through the autobahn’s running pro or pickets with mittens and thicker gloves as it was in the shade. We made Denali Pass at 18250 and the sun was out but a thick fog was over us. We broke out of the clouds at Arch Deacons Tower at 19200. Ahead lay the Pig Hill and the summit ridge. We grunted the ridge and had a breather before making our way across the ridge. A knife edge of white snow wind cornice. At the top there was music, singing, dancing laughing, crying, sobbing. Every bit of the extremes of human emotion. We were reminded that the long road back to camp lay beyond the summit. We got down and had a bag dinner and slept early.