September 6, 2007

AAI guide Mark Johnson called at 4:12pm with the following dispatch:

We awoke this morning to socked-in clouds and light snow. Most people took a rest day today and either stayed in camp or did a little hiking. Jack and I went to the glacier, where we practiced ice climbing technique for about three hours. When we returned to camp in the afternoon we had lunch and then spent some time working on rope skills with the entire team. We had a productive session and worked on making the mountaineers coil, tying knots, and setting up for glacier travel.

We had an incredible dinner of fresh trout from the Condoriri Lake. The trout here is really good, and it can't be any fresher. The skies over us have now cleared off, and it has cooled down. There is some lighting flashing right now on the east side of the range that's very loud - as if bombs are going off!

The team is pretty psyched that the sky has cleared, and we are getting up at 2am to leave at 3am for our climb of Pequeño Alpamayo. Everyone is in pretty good spirits; though we have been fighting the weather a bit. We've all certainly done our fair share of reading, and last night and this morning we played mountain trivia!