737 Leg 8 Denali - Day 204

Sorry it’s been a few days since calling in. Matt and I have been collapsing in to our tents every night at the end of the days since summiting, we’ve been shattered and other than down climbing just been sleeping loads. Summit day was a tough 15 and a half hour day. We had awesome weather on the summit though with amazing views and I even had just my primaloft jacket on the weather was so good.

After summiting we got back to 17,000ft camp and spent the best part of the next 20 hours asleep. After that the weather turned so we got a move on descending at a really good pace climbing from 17,000ft camp to 7,500ft camp picking up our cached gear at 14,000ft which was pretty heavy. It was 11 painful hours of down climbing with my toe and in a complete white out. We had about 3 hours sleep at 7,500ft camp before descending to base camp where we arrived yesterday morning.

There were quite a few teams moving though the glacier at the bottom of the mountain, it was reassuring having plenty of people around us. They led the way through 5-6 hours of the glacier which were really nerve wracking as every step I was reliving that fall. Quite a few people in other teams also had falls.

We were so relieved to get back in to base camp that we necked a whole bottle of whisky! We have also renamed the hill just as you get in to base camp. It’s called “Heartbreak Hill” but Parksy and I have renamed it “The never ending thank f*** we are alive Hill!!”

We were due to fly out from base camp yesterday but due to weather conditions the flight was cancelled. It’s snowing pretty heavily here and the weather is not great so it looks like we will be stuck here for a few days.