Day 6: April 8, 2026
On Day 6, Will battled "waist-deep" snow, a morning storm that cleared by day and settled into a freezing evening, making tasks like setting up camp particularly arduous.
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Yeah, Will here. April 8th, Day 6. Real tough day today, long day, 12 hours. The snow is still deep. One place I had waist-deep, but I didn't think that deep. That's the deepest I've seen it with the ski pole. But normally I'm in about knee deep. Sometimes you see your skis, sometimes you're above the skis. But it's typical, I expected that this first section of the Bloody River, probably the first 30 miles, with the trees and the snow, so far, it's just the way it is here, and it's also winding a lot. One front came in last night and I woke up to a little bit of a stormy day, kind of miserable starting off. And then it cleared off a little after noon and then the temperature dropped. And that was really a terrible evening. [We quit] at sunsets, temperatures were dropping real quickly by that time. My ears were, you know, exposed. Your fingers were kind of freezing up, nothing serious at all, but just indicative of that time.
Took me a while to get the tent set up. There's some slush underneath, you know, two feet of snow on that. I have to dig down. In order to anchor the sled, I have these ice climbing, mountain, mountaineering ice climbing screws. They're hollow screws, it's about ... they're about 10 inches. You screw them in. And they anchor the tent really, really well on ice -- a hurricane can't blow it out or anything. We used to anchor dogs with these things too. But I have to dig down about a couple of feet to get down to the regular ice. And today I have this slush on the ice underneath. Nothing too serious, a little bit of water. But I just took placing these ice screws here, a little bit of extra time. But it's extremely invigorating. And it's just like this cold air exercising all day. I got a second and then a third and a fourth air (wind). And at tent time it's just just gorgeous, really, after the hard day. Felt really good, and really into the setting up this camp and got everything inside, finally, really cold, a little bit chill. But as soon as I got the stove on, things are just really cool right now.
So things are going OK. My body held out. The rest day was real good for me. First three days on any expedition is really hard, physically. At 20 or 80 or whatever. No sparing anybody in the first three days. Usually it's first three days, it's tough. A little bit better shape now, not there. It takes about 10 days before you're really in sync and you get a good appetite. Your appetite ... it takes about a week before you get a really good, strong appetite, that's the sign of getting in shape. And the headlight down here is dark in the tent. The sun rises and sets later every day. It's rapidly getting into 24 of the light. I was one of the nights I saw a note in the light a couple of nights ago. It was beautiful. The twilight lasts for a long time though. Because the sun sets at an angle. So that twilight will go, you know, just setting here about 10 o'clock in mountain time. And still at noon or midnight, there's still glow in the north. And first look, you think it's northern lights, but it's just part of the dawn, the northern dawn. North of here, you know, 500 miles or so, it's 24 hours of light already. So anyways, on the Bloody River here, checking out here. Day 7, I think it is. [chuckle] I lose track of the day here, I always have to look at it. But I think it's April 7th or 8th. And Will here. Over and out.
Will’s location at the end of Day 6.
Will is using ice screws to secure his tent: "... a hurricane can't blow it out ..."
(source: Wikipedia)