June 12, 2007 by Lei.

The weather has been improving over the day, and we got more and more optimistic as time passes by. Earlier in the day, we were told to check back every hour if we
were to wander around in the town. So some people made several back and forth walk between the town of Talkeetna and the little airport. Later in the afternoon, we
were told to stick around, no one goes anywhere. 7:30, we were told to get ready. 8pm, we loaded up all our luggage by the loading area, changed into climbing boots.
Then Dave came back with a “cut-off” signal, no go again! The sky is definitely clearing up, but the word is that the cloud is still hanging around at the base camp level
that can’t land the airplane. We were a bit dissapointed, but think about those tired climbers who had stuck in the storm for weeks, now stuck at base camp waiting for
their flights out, how much dissapointment they have. At least, we can still enjoy a bed and shower here, and nice meals and drinks. Hopefully, we will go early
tomorrow morning, then possiblly skip base camp to go for camp 0.5 or camp 1 directly.
 
This morning, Dave went over the techniques about rigging sleds. There’re a lot of tricks to make sled traveling safe, especially when one falls into crevasse, it’s
important to prevent double jeapody (sled hitting the fallen one), rather, by using the double tag line connected by zip pull, sled can be used to help hold up the
fall, and make it easier for the person behind to hold the fallen one. Dave also shared funny stories of sleds traveling by themselves. Often climbers left the
sled unattended after untied it at camp site, the sled could start going by itself, and dissapeared off the crevasse . Once a sled with three sleeping bags on it
went off by itself, the unlucky three climbers had to call off their climb. So at least, don’t put your personal essentials on the sled!
 
Stories from yesterday, just in case I forgot later: Dave once discovered a cache at high camp marked “THEMIS project”, which had many air-dropped millatary style cardborad
cases of all kinds of supplies. No one knows what that project is. Until one day, in an accidental chat, someone said “I used to work on THEMIS project”, turned out it
stands for “The Men In Space” project the government (NASA) secretly experimented during cold war (1960s?) crisis time. They were trying to simulate human in space
by doing that on thin-aired mountain top.  There were a lot of abandoned cache stories.

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June 12, 2007 by Lei.

We drove up to Talkeetna yesterday morning. After enjoyed a sunny weekend, we got a cloudy anad breezy start for the week. On the way up, the condition looked very
marginal for flying. We stopped by the airoport first once we got in Talkeetna. To our excitement, it was said that the “airport” on glacier is open. But we still
have to check in with the park ranger’s office first. There we got a brief introduction about the climbing routes and leave no trace practice. There’re brochers
about Denali in all kinds of language, including Japanese and Korean, but no Chinese. I talked to the ranger, Chinese climbers are rare on Denali.
 
At noon, we checked in at airport, but it’s already closed because of weather on glacier. Anyway, we all changed into our climbing clothes, so we could jump on the
plane immediately when the cloud breaks. Unfortunately, the whole afternoon passed just in waiting. Lead guide Dave used this time to teach us glacier travel and self
rescue. I volunteered to be the first victim. But there was one little move that required me to do a quick short pullup with my 50lb pack on my back. I couldn’t
even move up a few inches. So we had a good laugh and had to modify my self rescue system. Dave spent quite some time to cutomize my system to accomodate my
narrower chest size and weaker arm strength.
 
We waited until 7pm when the pilots all went home, then called off the night.
 
Tuesday morning, it’s again cloudy. Pilots require line of vision to land on glacier. So we are just waiting here for a break in the clouds. Yesterday, only one
flight was able to fly in and fly out. Sometimes, the flight had to turn around half way when the condition sunddenly changed. Sometimes, half of the team was able
to fly in, the other half was left behind. So we had to be flexible and be ready to jump on plane at a short notice. 

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