Day 13 - caching at 16K ridge

TODAY'S STATS
    Denali    
Mt. Foraker
Registered Climbers
1,084
12
Climbers Currently On Mountain
475
3
Completed Climbs
74
8
Number of Summits
2
0
Summit Percentage
3%
0%

From Denali Dispatches: "Frank's patrol flew out of the range on Wednesday, May 22, attending a patient who collapsed at 9,800 feet, thus ending an eventful first patrol of the season."

The InReach weather forecast service, which is a paid service, reported clear skies for tomorrow. This was in contrast to the report from NPS, which indicated a big storm. We chose to trust InReach and made a mistake, as this will be the last time we check the weather with them.

We decided to move our cache, which consisted of seven days' worth of fuel and food, to an altitude of 5,000m, with the plan to move to the 17K camp tomorrow. The fixed lines proved to be steeper, longer, and icier than we had anticipated, but we climbed them using jumars and a Microtraxion as a ratchet (1:1). The Microtraxion allowed us to stop and rest at any time, but after passing the first anchor, it stopped working as the fixed line was too low on the ground. I solved the problem by extending the Microtraxion with a 30cm prusik loop.

We had reviewed all our climbing gear the day before and decided to leave everything else at the camp, except for the prusik loops. I did not anticipate needing to rappel, so I intended to leave the prusiks behind, but Vera suggested carrying them as an option. We did not need to rappel, but that prusik loop ended up saving my day.

On the way up, we passed two young guys, and the next day, we saw them at 14K, leaving. They said, "Went to 17K, gave up, no strength. Will come back next year."


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