Peter Stanley Mt. McKinley

It's now just about dinner time (July 8) at the 16,200 foot Camp VI. The time is 6:47 p.m. We'll probably take off in the morning. We've spent a rest day here. As always, I think Eric's instinctive calls have been good. I certainly feel a lot better than I felt yesterday. It's also been a lot of fun today to talk to the Genet Expeditions party led by Harry Johnson who has purchased Genet Expeditions from Kathy Sullivan, Genet's common law wife, I guess. Everybody found yesterday to be a singularly tough day and no one, it seemed, to whom I talked found it any less than the most difficult day since we have been on the mountain. Holly Parker... I think, is her name, a gal from down near Alyeska, was talking about how she just couldn't... she didn't have anything else to reach down for. She almost burst into tears in the middle of the climb, but she knew she couldn't stop, and she couldn't go any slower, and she certainly couldn't go any faster... and I must say I felt exactly the same way. As I mentioned briefly on the other tape, there was a three man team that came up behind the three man rope team led by Jeff of which I was the middle man and Matthew was the end man. And they were passing us on the left, and I thought, "Gods, they just must be much better climbers." It turns out that was Harry Johnson and two others that were sprinting, in effect, toward the 16,200 foot level with very light loads. So now I don't feel so badly about that at all since they were traveling light. I hadn't realized that they had cached a lot of stuff and they were going to sprint up and secure a camping area and then head back down for their equipment. As it turned out Eric (first rope: Eric, Larry, Sam & Stuart) got up here before anyone else did, and I think one of the contentions is that he secured the snow caves ahead of the other party. I think they were looking forward to getting one of the snow caves to cook in. Actually today not having a snow cave is a great benefit, because I think camping in a tent is very nice. I'm impressed by these North Face tents designed by Buckminster Fuller that are here. Tomorrow we are planning to take off at about, maybe, 9 or 10 or 11 and haul for about three hours up to the 17,200 foot level. We'll be carrying full loads again, so we'll no doubt be tired at the end. But it will probably not be as hard a day as yesterday... I hope. All of us are noting the breathlessness. Sam was talking to me earlier about how he really is short of breath no matter what he does or however far he walks, but it has seemed to me that when I get on the trail and I've got a load on my back I can generally keep going, particularly if the weather is good. Somehow bad weather makes it harder. Bad weather and high wind makes it hard for me to put out. Another thing I notice is that when I am putting out a maximum for me, which doesn't mean moving very fast with a seventy or eighty pound load at this altitude, anything that obstructs my breathing is a terrific impediment... Like just the little strap on my Goretex shell occasionally flies in front of my mouth... it's only a little piece of tape, but just the feeling that there is anything that cuts down on my access to air becomes a real nuisance that's psychologically impairing, in a way. I took a nap... I put on my down pants which means I've now got expedition-weight polypro, Moonstone pile pants, Goretex shell and down pants, in that order from inside to out. I've also got on my Koflac boots... I do not have on the overboots... and on top I've got a sweater, the down pants bib, and my Wilderness Experience parka, which is certainly ample clothing in addition to the Helly Hanson shelled insulated mitts. I was very comfortable and warm out here, and then I went into the cave, put on my down pants, lay down on my sleeping bag and went to sleep and woke up with cold feet and feeling generally chilly. I think that's because ice caves are colder than being outdoors in the sunshine. Ice caves are cozy in severe storms, and I think they are fine at sea level where you can probably put a couple of candles in there and warm them way up. But up here I would feel uncomfortable putting any kind of a burning flame in the cave for fear that carbon monoxide develop and the little bit of oxygen that's there get used up. They're not very pleasant because they're cold and the humidity is 100%. So nothing dries out... everything's kind of damp. We've had a beautiful day up to now, but the clouds are beginning to move in and obscure the incredible view... and maybe they'll bring some weather with them, but it might be just the weather breaking up... and it might be a good omen for what's coming for tomorrow. Tim, from Pittsburgh, took a nap at the same time that I did and woke up with a severe headache. I think I'm doing pretty well from an acclimatization standpoint. (Thanks largely to the Diamox, I suspect.)

(At Camp VI, 16,200 ft.) It's now 9:30 p.m. (July 8) I'm about to turn in. I think Sam and Larry have already turned in. I spent a lot of time talking to Eric about guiding... the six concessions in Denali Park and the fact that RMI owns one and we were also talking about the fact that he's been selected as "climbing leader" for the '87 Everest Expedition organized out of Arkansas, and he is going to go for that. That could be a major thing for him. The wind is blowing pretty hard. It's probably eight degrees... ten degrees. I'm going to turn in and talk about all this tomorrow. I feel a lot better... a million-fold better than I did last night. I still don't like the idea of climbing into an ice cave. But I think I'll make it through the night, and the way I see it now, tomorrow's going to be the last hard day of full pack climbing, because we will get up to the camp that, hopefully, we will shoot for the summit from. That will be a full load day, but after that it's downhill. We talked a light load to the summit. It will be a long day, just pray for good weather. We'll take a light load, if we do it, to the North Peak and then it's all downhill. We hike from the 17,000 foot camp all the way down to 14,000, pick up stuff, maybe go on down further to 11,500... well, we could get out of here by the 15th, we figure. We could summit by the day after tomorrow, the 10th or the 11th.

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