The lost blogs from September

I've found some of the lost Lost Flights blogs.

People who don't think we told enough about the hike. Well, take a hike. We did.

Check it out. These are the last two days. I have no idea why they didn't actually get onto the Web site. I could never find them. They were printed in the newspaper, which obviously folks didn't read.

I'm still pretty disappointed in the way our blogs were handled. For those who criticized us and our presentation, I'm glad I finally got these out. These two days were pretty dramatic.

I took the photograph above. It was our camp site just below Lamarck Col. This is about 12,500 feet. Cold. Windy. Boulders everywhere. We slept between boulders. That's Peter Stekel to the left and Mark Crosse closer to the camera. There was a huge ice field about 50 meters from us and a tarn where we got water. And we were still on the east side of the crest, not even within view of the glacier.

Could I have been more descriptive and make it more exciting? Sure. No excuses. I did my best. And I still have vivid memories of what happened. I can still write more. I might include some here.

Until then, this is what you didn't see.


On Sept. 9



Noon Sept. 9, 2008: The wind is really bad today. I'm standing on a dirty edge of the glacier, not far from one of the two engines of the AT-7 that crashed here. Huge slabs of granite are perched on top of the ice, making them look like they're on pedestals. Water runs everywhere. The glacier itself has melted out far more than last year. We're not even on the clean ice itself yet, we're on the boulder-strewn ice. My advice for anyone who wants to come up here? Get in shape, get a guide, and get life insurance. We're not quite on the ice yet, we will be later this afternoon. It's a harrowing climb to get up here.

5:30 p.m. Sept. 9, 2008: Author Peter Stekel today found part of an aluminum wing to the AT-7. It was a gully-wash of pure glacial melt. He photographed it, then continued his search in a brisk wind, with clouds racing overhead. We followed and saw some of the most incredible pieces of the Sierra.

Huge slabs of granite in columns 800 feet tall climbed the sheer cliffs at Mount Mendel. There were Hummer-sized blocks of granite standing on pedestals of ice.

The trip to get here is tough and dangerous. I can see why nobody is touching the wreckage.

What a beautiful, rare and terrifying place.


The next day ...


6:45 a.m. Sept. 10, 2008: We're going to pull out today. It's very cold: windy all night last night, in the 30s. Clouds are moving in over the crest. Hopefully we don't ... (and then the rest of Mark's message was lost in the wind).

4:25 p.m. Sept. 10, 2008: On the return from Darwin Canyon today, storm clouds gathered at the crest. As we boulder-scrambled 1,400 feet nearly straight up, it began to hail on us.

The hail was beginning to turn to snow and we realized that Lamarck Col, our destination, is one of the worst places you can be in lightning and a thunderstorm.

Photographer Mark Crosse found the proper route to get to the Col. Two days before, we had stopped for more than an hour to take pictures and make a satellite phone call.

This time, we passed without stopping.

We boulder-scrambled along the ice below the Col, and when we got down we just kept going. Thunder and lightning began about an hour later, and it hailed on us again near Lower Lamarck Lake.

It seemed like a fitting way to end this expedition -- lots of lightning and thunder but no real damage.