7/3/09

Hey there!

Well today was a fun, relaxing day. I didn’t really wake up when my tent mates went off to climb, which was nice, and woke up voluntarily around 8:30. After having some breakfast and saying good morning to John and Jake, I got to work carving out a water still* for my tent group. It works really well, and I was quite proud of it!

Then I sat around in the sun, reading and snacking for a while and enjoying the beauty of the mountains. It was such a relaxing way to enjoy Alaska! I loved it.

After a couple hours, everyone showed up again saying that peak was awesome, but scary as hell at the same time. Their pictures looked awesome!

After a lunch break we learned how to rescue someone from a crevasse, which took me a couple tries to learn, but now I’ve got it. Don’t worry, we used imaginary crevasses for learning! Tomorrow, however, we’re doing REAL crevasse rescues, which means I will be jumping into and pulling my course mates out of a real crevasse nearby. Pretty cool!

Also since tomorrow is the 4th we get the morning off which means I get three mornings off in a row (tomorrow is our re-ration)! So I plan on getting up late again, chilling out with everyone and then we do crevasse rescue. Also I’m planning on eating that Hershey bar since my tent couldn’t keep ourselves out of our celebratory jelly beans.

Everyone has finally calmed down it seems, which is good because it makes the trip so much more fun. My tentmates are awesome, and I’m excited for the next re-ration so I can meet even more people (I still haven’t tented with three people). This trip is so much fun, and we’re almost halfway done, so that’s less time until I get to see everyone! Plus now that I know what mountaineering entails, I can see myself doing this with friends in the future. It’s so much fun.

Well I’m gonna get back to my book now. Wish me luck in tomorrow’s crevasse training!

Adios!

~Fia

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*Since it looks like I never describe what a water still is – it’s a method for melting snow into drinking water. You carve into a vertical snow face a cone with the tip pointing down towards your water bottle. Sometimes we would put our dark seat pads above the cone to help heat up the snow on top. After a bit water would start pouring into your bottle like a tiny spring =)

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