Peter Stanley Mt. McKinley

It is now 5:51 p.m. (a few hours after the flight back from Kahiltna Base) on the 12th, Friday, and we're back in Talkeetna, but I want to report on all the things that happened subsequent to our having attained the summit. On the way back down the mountain upon urinating it appeared that my urine had blood in it. This absolutely shocked Eric and Larry. We thought there might be some relationship between that and the Diamox I had taken and the contention was that probably I was severely dehydrated and that I probably ought to be flown off the mountain as soon as possible. We proceeded on down to the 17,200 foot camp, Camp VII. I climbed into my sleeping bag having taken one spill on the way down. I was really weak. The spill consisted of... we were traversing above the 17,200 foot Camp VII, maybe three quarters of a mile along the trail toward Denali Pass. My crampons tangled with my neoprene overboots and I went down the side, but didn't have any fear. I just did what I had to do with the ice axe and self-arrested. But at the same time that I self arrested, Larry was in front of me and Eric was behind and both their ropes went taut and both of them were in position, particularly Eric who was just absolutely dug in, ready for me to fall and he could have caught anything. I think Larry could have too. Anyway, I kicked out snow steps just be throwing my feel out and slamming them into the side of the mountain and managed to dig my way back up to the trail and I was absolutely breathless by the time I got to the trail again. Maybe a quarter of a mile further down when it leveled out and we got past the crevasses, Larry said I should take my pack off and he and Stuart and the others would relieve me of some of the load. And they did. I carried practically an empty pack back the last quarter of a mile and then climbed into my sleeping bag. It was cold. Maybe, I guess it was ten degrees or something like that... five or ten. The party that went on to the top following us that we passed -- the Genet group en route to high camp... we were on en route to high camp, they were en route to the summit... we'd gotten to the summit at five o'clock, they got to the summit about 1:00 a.m. and it was twenty below according to their thermometer when they reached the summit. We ended up in effect not turning in until after midnight and the plan was to get off to a leisurely start in the early afternoon. And we ended up getting off, carrying full loads, from the 17,200 foot Camp VII at about 1:30 p.m. (July 11). We just sailed down the mountain and I felt enormously revitalized by the increased supply of oxygen as we moved down. We got to the 16,200 foot camp which was Camp VI for us, the snow caves, in I think it was 38 minutes after walking through an absolutely gorgeous section of very steep, marvelously exposed portion of the West Buttress. I let Eric use the camera and I think we probably got some good shots out of that. We then proceeded down the fixed ropes which were almost as devastatingly difficult on the way down as they had been on the way up. I remember on the way up I was just about ready to toss in the sponge, but on the way down it wasn't so much a question of breathlessness as it was balance and the snow conditions... we were going through what seemed like corn snow. Well it was more powdery than corn, I guess, because it was cold enough to be thoroughly frozen. But obviously another 16 or 18 inches of snow, it seems to me, had fallen, maybe not quite that much, since we had come up. We paused for a while at the 14,000, I believe it was 14,200 camp where we had cached a lot of supplies on the way up. We dug up our sleds and then we reallocated the weight between our sled and our packs plus we picked up a whole lot of gear. We ran into another RMI expedition heading up the mountain and Jeff and Eric had a long chat with the guide. We tried to give them as much of our gear as we could so we wouldn't have to take it down. They only took one sled full of fuel and food. After a couple of hours' stop, I guess, maybe an hour and a half, and some hot drinks and lunch and whatever, we headed on down really making marvelously good time. We just smoked on down past our old campsites until we got down below 10,000 feet and then we even considered going all the way down to Kahiltna Base that night. We figured we could make it by two or three a.m. But then we decided to turn in... I guess it was roughly about 9,600(?) feet in an area that was just above our second camp. We were walking without snowshoes or crampons after the 14,200 camp which was Camp V. We proceeded own, we started off with Eric in front, me second, Stuart third and Larry last. On the second rope was Jeff, followed by Sam and Matthew. We descended just under 10,000 feet total for the day, ending up between our original Camp II and Camp III. We stopped when the snow began to get soft as we got to lower altitudes and the temperature went up. The next morning I awoke at 7:00 a.m.,. got up and tried to get a cup of coffee together, spent an hour getting the ice melted and trying to get everything together and then we headed on down, leaving at 9:30 a.m., arriving at the Kahiltna base after a very hard push at roughly 1:00 p.m. Doug Geeting of the Talkeetna Air Taxi flew in... He had seen us coming down and thought we were the Genet group and he flew in to fly us off and upon discovering that we weren't the Genet group, went ahead and took Larry and Sam and very soon after they had departed, within about half an hour, Lowell Thomas, Jr. flew in in his turbo-charged plane (Heliocourier) and took Stuart and me to the FAA strip where Cliff Hudson met us. Matthew and Jeff were brought in later on in the afternoon. There was some concern as we flew out that the weather was closing in and maybe they wouldn't be able to get out that day. We had a marvelous dinner at the Teepee and we ended up sitting up in the Teepee bar talking to Holly Parker and Scott von Eschen and Dick the doctor and Tim the U.S. Air climber whose address I have. I was advised by the doc that I might have a lesion in my bladder and that probably I should get it checked if any problems persist. (Sound of bagpipes in Talkeetna Moose Festival parade) I woke up early Saturday morning, got out in time to record the parade which you heard a little while ago. There I met Chris Mahay with her three boys. Larry and Sam and Eric made plans to head south. (End of log.)

Eric