Camp 3 at 14,200 ft.
What a welcome site!!!
What a welcome site!!!
Camp 3 was by far the biggest camp. It is considered the base camp for the upper mountain....where the real climbing begins!
Home for the next week. Originally we planned to take one rest day here before we carried a load and moved up to high camp, but I caught this nasty cold at camp 1 and it was pretty bad when we got here. So we ended up taking two rest days. After two days of rest the weather forecast was not looking good at high camp so we stayed put for several more days. We ended up spending seven nights at camp 3.
Great view of Mt. Foraker from camp.
Guess what....the bathroom. I love the cut-out of the moon in the snow block!
Here are a few pictures of other peoples camp.
Great walls!
Guided group
One night Andrew counted 118 tents set up at camp 3! That means probably over 250 people there!
Mt. Foraker
Mt. Hunter
Random pee hole in the middle of camp.
The first day at camp 3, Andrew and Arnaud went to retrieve our cache at 13,500 ft. I decided my body needed at least one complete rest day to try and fight off my cold. At this altitude even on the "rest" days it is imperative to stay active by walking around camp, improving your camp, or wall building....doing something.
We had two visits from a helicopter that day as well. I don't know the reason of the first but the second was to pick up a skier's body that had fallen down a very steep slope and landed in a crevasse. The park rangers were able to extract his body from the crevasse and lower it to a safer location that could be picked up by the helicopter.
The next challenge is getting to the 16,200 ridge and the Headwall. From camp 3 you ascend 2,000 ft in one mile. This is the steepest part of the entire route. You climb a moderately steep 1200 ft. up to the base of the 800 ft. 40-55 degree snow and ice slope called the Headwall. There are two fixed ropes on the Headwall, one for ascending and the other for descending. By enlarging these two photos (double click on them) you can see the climbers or the tiny black dots on the route.
On our first carry day after resting, we made a cache of food and fuel at the 16,200 ridge (where the first fatality of the season occurred). A couple of days later we tried to move to high camp, but I was just not feeling strong enough. So, the following day we went back up to the 16,200 ridge and moved our cache up to the high camp. Then, a couple of days later is when we did move up to high camp for good.
Even though the weather looks good, it was not at camp 4 (aka high camp or the 17K camp), so we have lots of things to do at camp 3 to pass the time while waiting on better weather. Andrew is using a snow saw to cut blocks from a nearby quarry. The best snow for blocks is wind blown snow, making it a styrofoam consistency. Arnaud and I participated too but Andrew did most of the work himself.
Andrew's wall!
These are our neighbors from the 11K camp (camp 2), Bard and Jonas, joining us at camp 3. We ended up spending about two weeks with them, even summitted with them, so we became good friends. They are currently from Salt Lake City, UT.
Hanging out at beautiful 14,200 ft.
One morning we walked over to an awesome view point called The Edge of the World. Where the 14,200 plateau ends with a 4700 foot drop!
It was about a 20 min. walk.
Great view looking at Mt. Foraker and the Kahiltna Glacier. You could see camp 1 at 7,800 ft. from here.
Mt. Hunter in the background.
Headed back to camp.
To the Headwall.......tomorrow!
View of camp from "The Edge of the World"
Notice the snow block cook table. We did a lot of cooking to pass time.
Chocolate chip pancakes with lots of butter and brown sugar! Our neighbors were so jealous.
We also had dehydrated hashbrowns (that we put cheese and smoked salmon in), oatmeal, bagels (with cream cheese or a cheddar and summer sausage sandwhich), granola, lots of nuts, dried fruits, tons of chocolate, cookies, and candy bars, granola bars, pasta, mac-n-cheese, rice, beans, tortillas (made cheese quesadillas sometimes)...all kinds of good stuff!
Cards and reading helped pass the time too. And there's our trusty SPOT tracker that enabled everyone to see our location in real time.
We listened to music on a daily basis. Andrew had an ipod charger that ran on two AA batteries and Arnaud has a solar charger for his ipod. The black object hanging off the left side of the tent was a small speaker box that ran on two AA batteries. Some people had movies on their ipods!
A few more random pictures of camp from the seven days we spent there.
After our neighbors Bard and Jonas moved to high camp, these two fellas moved in beside us. Kevin and Patrick, from Massachusetts and New Hampshire. They were fun guys! As for girls, I would say about 1 in 10 climbers were females. In most guided groups at least one of the guides were female!
That bathroom looks even colder than Mom and Dad's outhouse in the winter.
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