How did you eat and sleep for 60 days on a rock wall?

Published: May 5, 2004

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Todd Skinner on top

April 29, 1996

How did you eat and sleep for 60 days on a rock wall?
Have you ever climbed at Index, Washington?
How can I overcome fear of climbing?
What was your best experience?
Have you ever climbed in Ireland?

How did you eat and sleep for 60 days on a rock wall?
Question: Hi, Todd. Please answer this naive question: How in the world were you able to spend 60 days on a rock? How did you manage to obtain food, water, and sleep?

Elana Cooper
ecooper@ljcrf.edu

Answer: We had some porters carrying food and fuel to the base of our ropes at our camp at 17,500 feet. And every so often someone would rappel down and Jumar up and carry food to us. So one of the climbers would go down. It took quite a while to do that job. It took usually a whole day to make one round-trip load and the person could usually
carry only 40 pounds. And that allowed us to have fuel to melt the snow for water and for cooking, and then of course to have enough food to keep climbing. And for sleeping we lived 45 days on a little ledge and 15 days in a hanging tent.