At the spot marked “F” in the photo below, 2 climbers were dropped off by plane this last May to climb on Mt Huntington in the Denali area. On one had ever landed in this cirque. They repeated several climbs and found many new ascent possibilities.
On one of their many climbs in this area they encountered deep snow on their return to camp.
“At times we would sink waist-deep in the soft snow, only held up by our packs. We were out of food, fuel, and water, so there was no real benefit to stopping, and so we just kept struggling. At one point, for the first time in my life, I was not confident that I could just keep going for the barn. It was that bad. Only the bottle of tequila in the tent kept us moving. That and the fact that stopping wasn’t going to solve the problem. Sixty-seven hours after we left the tent, we returned—wasted, parched, hungry, almost delirious. I had never felt better.”
(One of the climbers had just recovered from a broken neck and back having, just before he broke his back, recovered from near paralysis caused by a rare disorder.)
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