Back from the glacier!

After several days of waiting out bad weather in our tent, we got flown off of the Kahiltna Glacier after a late night weather break. When we first arrived, conditions on the mountain were good (consistently cold and frozen with clear and sunny skies although a storm was consistently forecast as imminent!) and so we got straight onto the West Buttress route of Denali the next day. We hauled sleds and big packs on skis (rather hard work!) and were really pleased to see that we were making good time on each leg (at least an hour under guidebook time - something that earnt us the nickname of the "Bad Ass British Girls"!!). We rocked into Basin Camp at 14,000ft after several days of single carrying: we both felt strong, fit and seemed to be acclimatising well at 11,000ft camp and so made the most of the weather to make the long day to 14,000ft camp around Windy Corner, a notorious spot to cross if there is any wind at all (and laced with some rather large and sneaky crevasses!).

We then spent 6 days at 14,000ft camp. The first day we had as a rest day but keeping active all the time...with reports of the 'storm' still coming up we spent a long time digging out and building 2m high walls and generally reinforcing the tent. We both felt the altitude here for the first time and had trouble sleeping for all of the nights that we were there. Cat also had a blinding headache for the whole 6 days and the symptoms seemed to intensify quite acutely when we headed up onto the ridge at 16,200ft for acclimatisation/caching purposes. This section of the route included use of the fixed lines maintained by various guiding companies up steeper, icier ground which culminated in a ridge which was often windy and very cold, brrr. Temperatures at basin camp were an average of -18C with several nights of temperatures dipping to -30C and beyond. We both got quite a good lesson in living at those altitudes and temperatures...unsurprisingly EVERYTHING freezes solid: your toothpaste, water, hair, suncream, clothes (sometimes while wearing them...) and most unfortunately...bagels and chocolate M&Ms :(

After a week at 14 000ft with the skies promising the storm that we had been long awaiting, we decided to descend. Cat was not acclimatising any better and was in fact feeling worse the more we stayed. We descended to 11,000ft camp in deteriorating weather although were lucky enough to sneak around Windy Corner before the wind hit. This was our first experience of pulling sledges downhill and was not altogether successful or speedy!! In the end we realised that there was no easy way of taking a sledge downhill (apart from taking your knife and chopping the rope between yourself and the sledge while uphill from a very large crevasse!! NB: We do not condone littering in the mountains) and let the sledges do their own thing back to 11,000ft camp. We spent two days here in bad weather, trying to amuse ourselves while sitting out the storm, getting up regularly to melt water, dig the tent out (an hourly event day and night at some points, 11,000ft gets a LOT of snow!!), or to see if a clearer weather window had opened up. We got a little break in the weather at about 15:30 on day 3 and so sprung into action. We dug up our cache including our skis that had been left here and rigged up the sledges. Big packs, a sledge, skis, tons of snow (which would have been amazing powder skiing down if it wasn't for the darn sledges...grrr!) and no visibility. With compass at the ready we headed down from 11,000ft, following wands that had been left to mark the way by various parties (very useful as their trails were blown away in a matter of minutes). Even though these were reguarly spaced we often had to wait for a break in the mist and snow to see the next or resorted to travelling on a bearing. Progress was slow with the visibility and the weight of the sledges in the deep powder that we were breaking trail in, I was sure that we should have been skiing downhill not putting skins on to get down!!

Several hours later saw us cross the crevasse-ridden expanse of the Kahiltna and turn the fork up Heartbreak Hill back to base camp, arriving at 10.30pm, yet still in the daylight. Cat's headache was gone for the first time in over a week and after digging up our cache we could enjoy a gin and tonic or two.

We chilled out at base camp for a few days feeling good in our acclimatisation and seeing what the weather would bring us. After several more days of tent dwelling while it snowed (including getting to know the others waiting at base camp and doing a bit of skiing - great fun!) it became clear that our intended objective of Sultana Ridge would not be manageable under it's current condition of lots of snow, built up cornices, incoming weather and the time that we had left. With a continuous forecast of more snow and increasing winds over the next week we decided to take a short break in the weather where flights could get in, in between two frontal systems and bail back to Talkeetna. With the spell of bad weather a queue of around 80 people had built up for the airline companies...quite a backlog to clear when little planes of up to 6/7 people are used! After putting our name on the list and being told it may be some days before we got out as the backlog would take a long time to clear, we had a mad dash to break camp and get all of our things into the plane at 15 minutes notice!!

We are back in Talkeetna now, relaxing, washing kit and recovering from a slight headache after experiencing an Ice Axe Ale or two at the Fairview...we didn't get back to the airstrip until 23:30 and so the only thing to do was head straight to the pub!

We have just under a week before we fly home and so our aim is to meet up with as many of the lovely people we met on the glacier as possible - many of whom were kind enough to invite us to stay. In fact we are borrowing a car off Jeff, who we camped next to at 14 000ft, and going to head down to the Kenai Peninsula to see a little bit more of the state. It's definitely fair to say that we have met some amazing people while being here.

Pictures to follow shortly....!