Well, it's 4 days later and once again we're tent-bound due to bad weather. Dinner is cooking. A few minutes ago the skies cleared and our spirits rose. We decided to fix supper and were thinking of leaving for the summit of Mt. Into tonight. But then a thick layer of fog rose out of the valley below us and our conversation turned to how long we could wait for the weather before turning back for basecamp.
Our camp is on a surface moraine near the bottom of the glacier which rises just to the west of Mt. Isto's peak. We arrived here last evening about 10 p.m., had two dinners - mashed potatoes and gravy, and potato corn chowder, had a couple belts of brandy, a smoke, and we've been in our sleeping bags every since. It's shortly after 8:00 p.m. now.
I have spent most of my waking hours today trying to fix my stove. But I'm afraid it's just about had it. Oh well, it was a good little stove while it lasted. Now we're down to a single stove.
We spent Sunday doing odd chores and getting our stomachs full once again. We passed a brandy bottle around for awhile and generally conducted a low-key party all afternoon. We finished the day sitting in the fog eating fruit cocktail which had been reconstituted with water and brandy.
Monday was August 1. We slept until about 10:00 a.m. when the heat drove us out of the tents. We spent the morning organizing our gear for a trip to the headwaters of the Okpilak and the summit of Mt. Into. We figured it would take us 3 days to reach the glacier, 1 or 2 to reach the summit and recuperate, and 3 to return. We decided to carry ample food for 10 days, enough to easily stretch to 12 if necessary. We were determined to avoid a fast this time.
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