Hot days at Camp 3

hard to believe it.

June 11 9:13pm “Main objective is to go up the fixed lines to the 16,000’ ridge” as opposed to going up rescue gully or skiing down anything as the avalanche danger is high because of the high winds and snow from last week.

“Tomorrow backhaul. Then rest day. Then explore the fixed lines to 16k’ if we are feeling it. Pretty significant temp difference between 11 and 14! Sun went behind the mountain and it’s cold!”

June 12 9:56am “I'm checking in. Everything is okay.”

11:12am “Clear as can be today. We have some mild AMS - headaches and a little short of breath walking around camp. Pounding fluids and staying out of the hot sun is the go.”

7:26pm “Just got back from cache retrieval a little while ago. Took us about 1.5 hrs. Mostly hung in the megamid and avoided direct sunlight today. The heat is intense! My headache is gone. Felt really good hauling the cache uphill. Folks have been coming by all day offering food and fuel. We now have all of our cache plus 2 more gallons of gas. A ton of salami and more rando dehydrated stuff. We scored so much food today. Like pounds of butter, sugar, drink mix, bars, nuts, chocolate, etc…we are gonna come home heavier than we left!”

More information about the West Buttress route found at the Alpine Institute website.

I asked about his plan for the next few days…

8:15pm “Rough plan would be to rest tomorrow (Friday) bring a cache up fixed lines on Saturday to 16,000’. Then head up to 17,000’ camp on Sunday. If weather holds…summit attempt on Monday. That’s like the absolute fastest I would want to go.”

He said the “air was thin when we arrived here yesterday. I felt like I had two beers in my system. Out of breath shoveling.” So they aren’t sure they want to spend too many nights at 17,000’.

Glad the high pressure is holding for now but apparently it’s very hot, which I think is a good problem to have.