Denali Journal, Day 18: Camp IV to Base Camp

[Midnight]  This morning it was probably the coldest morning at Camp IV of all the days so far, and it was still a bit windy, but good enough for a departure to Base Camp!  I roped up with the Alpine Ascents International (AAI) team for the slog to Base Camp.  They were kind of dilly dallying and having trouble getting going, so we didn't actually leave until about 10:00 a.m.  I was on a rope of 4 climbers, and there was another rope of 5 more, and two of us (a woman named Sandra from Florida) were just clipping in to get to Base Camp.  They guy in front was named Alex, and he right away reminded me of the biker dude in the "Everest-Beyond the Limit" series on National Geographic Channel, boasting that he was supposed be on Everest right now, blah blah blah--he even had the same build.  But he seemed nice enough and anyways, I just needed to get along for a day and make the best of the situation since the AAI team was kind enough to take me with them to Base Camp.  The AAI guides seemed really friendly and "with it."  Alex was pulling a sled full of shit, and I wondered to myself why they had so much gear with them at Camp IV, while we had cached our sleds and heavy stuff at Camp III at 11,200 ft to avoid dealing with sleds up the steep Motorcycle Hill, Squirrel Hill, and Windy Corner (the express route to the Kahiltna if you should fall).

Everything was fine until we got to Windy Corner and Squirrel Hill.  Since I had to prevent the sled from slamming into Alex's heels on the descent, it required some concentration to provide the backpull and taught rope necessary, but that much is normal.  The problem was that it was really windy on Windy Corner (go figure) and in fact, the high winds persisted all the way from Windy Corner to Kahiltna Pass just below Camp III.  It was so windy that I had to lean into my ice axe on some of the steeper parts.  Combine that with holding a sled back, heavy focus on keeping traction on steep terrain (two climbers on the other rope slipped and caught themselves, thankfully), having Alex pull me forward with an unmanageable pace despite my repeated warnings to him, stinging cold, fogged up glacier glasses, a very high heart rate, and you have a recipe for, well, not a lot of goodness, that's for sure!  Alex yelled at me several times for letting the sled bump into his heels and the last time I fired off a few f-in-heimers at him to let him know just how serious I saw the situation.  I think he "got it" at that point, but by then, we were almost to Motorcycle Hill.  He reminded me of adventure racers who give great lip service to teamwork but fail in that practice miserably.  We went from Camp IV to Camp III without a break!

Once we got to Camp III, I dug up some snowshoes per Walter's instructions and then the AAI guides, having witnessed the exchange between Alex and I, switched it up so that one of the guides took Alex's place.  I wasn't sad to see his demotion!  From there, we left Camp III and headed down, yielding to teams coming up hill.  There were so many teams coming up that we ended up breaking a lot of trail, which is a lot of extra work.  Visibility wasn't the greatest, so it was wand-to-wand travel for awhile until we got to clear skies at about 8,500 ft, which was a welcome site.  We stopped briefly to pull off our puffy jackets, but after that we didn't stop until Camp I at 7,800 ft.  At that point, the pace got more manageable.  We rested again just below Heartbreak Hill, which is a 400 ft. ascent to get to Base Camp.  

Heartbreak Hill was a huge heartbreaker!  It took over an hour to slog up that bastard, but we knew we were almost there.  Once we got to Base Camp at 8:00, we were too late to fly out and at any rate, it wasn't good flying weather.  It was all-in-all a 10-hour slog!  The AAI guides were total rock stars and made us bean and rice burritos and dug out a cache of beer for us!  I still don't know where they got it, but all guides have their connections!  We didn't get to sleep until after midnight.  I dreamt of nothing but getting off that big lump of ice and rock and of the team still up high.