Peter Stanley Mt. McKinley

It's now 7:00 p.m. on July 9th, Tuesday, and we are at 17,200 feet, Camp VII, "high camp." When we woke up this morning (at Camp VI), I went out and checked... the temperature was two degrees and the wind was blowing really hard. Sam during the night got up and, fortunately, shoveled out the entrance to our cave... we had absolutely been buried in the snow, and when I got up first thing this morning, we had been buried almost again... not quite... and I shoveled us out which took ten or fifteen minutes and I went over to the other cave and they were buried. But they seem to have very little regard or at least Matthew and Stuart don't seem to worry too much about being asphyxiated. Nonetheless I dug them out and went in and we had breakfast. We notice that the Genet party looked pretty well decimated because their cooking area in particular was in disarray... the snow had drifted all over their pots and pans and they were all in their tents. Nobody had gotten up. We went back and packed up, ready to move out, put goggles on, warm gear and headed out up the route to high camp which was the most spectacular climbing I've ever experienced in my life. We had unbelievable exposure. Starting off, going up that pitch, after five steps I felt so out of breath I was afraid I couldn't take another step. The order of the ropes was changed this morning. The first rope was Eric followed by me, followed by Sam, followed by Larry. Second rope was Jeff, followed by Matthew, followed by Stuart. We climbed a ridge that gives phenomenal exposure, showing Mt. Hunter which seems like it's way below now, Foraker, but specifically we could look down to Camp IV and V, we could really see the whole route that we had come up from the Kahiltna Glacier on. We could see just about all of our campsites. The one that was particularly apparent was 14,200 (Camp V). No one seems to be following us up the mountain at the moment with the exception of the Genet Expedition group led by Harry Johnson, but it doesn't look to me as if he's going to make it up here today. I think they probably stayed back.

It's now 9:56 p.m. at the high camp, Camp VII. You can't see the summit from here, but the sky is certainly going through some radical shifts and changes. Looking in the summit direction, it's absolutely clear. there are some cirrus clouds. The wind is blowing but it's been dying down quite a bit. I've all of a sudden started feeling just great, really up for the march to the summit. Sam and Larry both have gotten bad headaches and Eric has given them Diamox and suggested that Sam take some codeine which he has done and he is down asleep in the tent. He and I have gotten to put a tent up... as far as I'm concerned I'd just as soon never spend another night in a snow cave at ten degrees and 98% relative humidity. I was asking Eric what would happen... we were talking about the tents we are using and how they were at Camp II on Mt. Everest which is close to being as high as we are right now, and I was asking what would happen if someone were brought up to this altitude without acclimatizing as we have done, and he says that probably they would be dead within 48 hours. In thinking about this trip I guess one of the pervasive messages that comes from everybody that climbs is that the highs and lows are extreme. I know that when we started out this morning from 16,200 after about ten steps I couldn't breathe, there was just no air, I was exhausted, I felt like I couldn't do a thing. Later checking with Sam, he said it was exactly the same way and at the first rest stop he had apologized for letting the rope go taut because, he said, he just couldn't go any faster. Before we started out, Eric... first time he's ever raised his voice as far as I know... I was trying to get my stuff together... I put my mittens on, and the wind was blowing like crazy... temperature was zero... and I hadn't buckled the waistband to my pack... and he said, "Peter, buckle the buckle to your pack before you put your mittens on! Think! Get it together!"... you know, and I couldn't get it together... it's really hard to get it together up here. You can't think straight 'cause there's no oxygen, and... although at times one thinks one is, one has to be suspect of one's judgement. Well, I think I've got together the things that if we go to the summit tomorrow I want to take... the banners, George's pocket knife which he wanted me to take to the summit. I might even try to scratch his name on it on the summit. I have got to get a roll of film in the camera... I think I have gotten good photographs. We are up here among the rocks and the rocks are very granitic... some look very old and some look metamorphosed. I kind of like being among rocks as opposed to just snow and ice, which was the case way down below on the glacier. There's something solid about rocks. Well, I am going to turn in because I am beginning to freeze... it's probably five or ten degrees... I don't know... maybe it's as cold as zero. The sun is not shining, and as soon as the sun goes behind a cloud or behind part of the mountain the temperature drops very fast. It's interesting to note some of the other things we have talked about. Larry suffered from a severely sunburned tongue just from leaving his mouth open. The gal down below talked about having sunburned gums from the way she smiles and keeps her mouth open. My lips have blistered and my left cheek has scabbed over, the scab has fallen off, my nose has peeled, and the trouble with "Sunblock 15" is that it freezes. You have to put the stuff on when it's zero degrees and there's no way to keep all the stuff warm that you have to keep warm. You have to keep your water bottle in your sleeping bag, and your boot liners in your sleeping bag, and your sunblock in your sleeping bag... your wet clothes in your sleeping bag to try to dry them out... a lot of hard things to do... and most of the time they don't get done... or a lot of the time they don't, but things seem to work out pretty well anyway. Reading Sam's little book on the presence of God really helped me, and I have been having hymns running through my head a lot as we've been coming up here, specifically that one "Almighty Father strong to save who's arm hath bound the restless wave..." I've thought about a verse that would apply to climbers. Well, it's incredible to just have that one big objective of hitting the summit... you know... it's going to be great. I'm really looking forward to it. I hope we got tomorrow and I pray for sunshine and no wind. I don't care if it's cold, but, oh..., if only we could have some sunshine and not too much wind.

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