Burleson

Hear Todd's Call from Greenland

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We had a horrible storm yesterday. It buried about everything we had. So we spent most of the morning cleaning it up and digging out tents and digging out food, and then we went to climb the peak tonight. We left about two in the afternoon and summited about seven and just got back to camp, had a little dinner. It was a fantastic day: no wind at all and beautiful skies. The mountains all look great.

I went up, I led the climb and got up, about halfway up, and the fracture took off and settled all around us—a huge fracture line all the way around. It wasn't deep, but it was big—scary because we were on a steep slope right above crevasses.

So we quickly backtracked and went around a different direction and were able to get around it and get up onto the summit ridge and climb the peak. It was I think the second ascent. Our first ascent of it was last year.

It was nice to get back down and see the, look up at the route, and see the footprints of where you've been and look around and realize that you're in such an isolated, pristine, wonderful environment. And we're the only ones here! It's gorgeous.

Kathy, and Al, and John, and Wally are all doing fine, and I think tomorrow, we'll go up and do a carry up towards Gunnbjornsfjeld. We're going to do something different this year. We're going to put up a high camp up there so we can climb several of the peaks in that area. And we'll see how tomorrow goes.

The weather is beautiful right now. The sun went behind the hill for about an hour, and now it's back out. So at 12:30 in the morning, we've got lots of light, and it looks like a beautiful evening light out, shining on all the peaks. We'll give you a call tomorrow and take care from Greenland. Bye bye.

— Alpine Ascents Guide Todd Burleson, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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