14 K camp is the nice flat basin just right of the center of this photo.Kirsten called in last night. They rolled in to camp yesterday afternoon. They made it up to camp from 11K in about 7 hours. That is a very respectable time. She said they took tons of breaks and took their time. They are doing very well. They have all of their kit up at 14K. Today is going to be a total rest day and they will start covering skills tomorrow.
When they made their carry, the day before yesterday, they were able to go all the way to 14K to cache it. Smaller groups are able to make better time often than larger groups. The cache day from 11K up past Windy Corner is the hardest day for most people that they will have encountered so far on their Denali trip. So, for Kirsten, Greg and Olivier to have gotten all the way to 14K to cache tells me that Olivier is doing very well.
14K is a great place to be. They are into the second phase of their expedition. The first phase being the lower mountain up to 14K. The second phase is from 14K to 17K, and the third is from 17K all the way back to Talkeetna. The trip does not end at the Summit. The trip is only half over at that point, it sure is a lot easier going down though.
I suspect that Tork is heading to 11K today. From talking to Greg last night it sounded like he was installed near Kahiltna pass. We generally single carry from 9,800' camp to 11K.
The main purpose of our cell phones is for emergency purposes. I love hearing from the guides but I also tell them to save some juice for an emergency.
When I talked to Kirsten last night I wrote down Olivier's girlfriend's name on a piece of scratch
paper but I left it over at the AMS schoolroom on the other side of town. Olivier wanted us to say that he really missed her and he is doing great and having a fun time and all that stuff.
latah
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