June 6, 2015 (Day 2): Move to Ski Hill

With all the excitement, it expectedly took me a little longer than normal to fall asleep.  I got a few hours in when all of sudden there was a rustle on the tent.  I looked at my watch and noticed it was only 0100.  The guides decided to wake us up just over an hour early, probably with the assumption our first camp tear down wouldn't be the most efficient of the trip.  They were right.  I ended up packing and repacking a few times trying to squeeze all of my gear into the pack and was the last one to get tied into the rope system.

We were travelling in a rope team of three and a rope team of two.  Josh would lead the team of two with Marcus in the middle and myself in the rear.  Kai led Zach on the team of two.  It took us about 2.5 hours to get ready and we were ready to depart at 0340.  It only took me about two steps before I clumsily stepped on my snowshoes and fell to the ground.  The rope tugged me a bit and I slowly got back to my feet, I'm sure filling Josh with great confidence for the more technical days on the trip.

It took a few minutes to get into the glacier travel rhythm of not allowing too much slack in the rope so that it would slide into the climber in front of me.  The team moved rather efficiently and we reached 7800 camp at the base of Ski Hill at around 0840 with two stops along the way.  It was awe inspiring to get our first glimpse of the summit, but almost just as important to see the Northeast Fork, also known as the Valley of Death.

Luckily another AMS team led by Josh's Girlfriend Chelsea was planning to depart so we were able to take advantage of their tent platforms, walls, and cooking area.  They had been stuck at this camp waiting out the same storm that we were waiting out in Talkeetna.  Our site was set up by 1130 and we all took a brief nap.  We gathered in the cook tent for dinner around 1700 and enjoyed some tasty bites with rice and pea soup with bacon. The plan for tomorrow was to cache at 9500 camp up the Northeast Fork, so it was another early bed time of 2000.