Greetings to all the climbers from this expedition!
Every one of you should be proud of what we have done.
On this Mountain Trip, we carried an international character and a unique sense of humor. Miraculously we avoided international incidents, stood on the summit and made great friends. Despite our diverse backgrounds and world-views, this team of strong individuals displayed a willingness to support one another. We have accomplished the (nearly) impossible.
By now we hope everyone has gotten to where they came from. Please take time to reflect on Denali while in the comforts of your town life. It was a pleasure climbing with all of you. Remember your bodies are trucks, not temples. With enough fuel and four wheel drive you can go anywhere. Come by for a hot drink(s!) next time you're in Alaska!
The team had a speedy descent, and they flew off the glacier on Sunday morning. We picked them up and drove them to Anchorage where they had a nice final team dinner. We'll have the guides post a final trip report soon.
Congratulations for a successful trip to end the Mt Trip Denali season!
Here is a short video I shot from the summit on a clear day in 2007. Hopefully it will give you a sense of what your friends and loved ones are looking at right now.
He and the rest of the team are all standing on top of Denali as I type. He said it is so warm and balmy that he and two other just took "shirtless summit photos." That is almost unheard of on Denali!
Apparently it is a crystal clear day and they are all enjoying the views that stretch out over the entire Alaska Range. Everyone is doing great and they will descend in about a half hour or so.
Tomorrow they will drop back to Camp 3 and have promised to give us a call to update us on their plans after that point.
The crew moved up to High Camp yesterday (Wednesday). They are sitting tight in a well-fortified camp right now, with gusty winds buffeting their tents. The move up to High Camp is one of the toughest days of the trip, and they are taking a well-deserved rest.
Tomorrow they plan to make a bid for the summit, if the winds lessen. I'll keep you posted!
Meerie and Eileen are descending with a Mountain Trip team led by Heidi Kloos. They did great, but both decided that it might not be the best idea to push it further. Great job ladies!! They are descending from Camp 3 today and will spend the night at Camp 1 this evening. Early in the pre-dawn hours, they will pack up and head for Base Camp, as the air taxis are only able to land in the early morning hours, when the runway is most firm.
The crew spent today resting and acclimatizing at Camp 3 today. It was a hot and beautiful day in the Alaska Range, and they needed to hide from the sun at times. Camp 3 can act like a huge solar reflector and can be quite war, despite all the snow and those huge glaciers.
Meerie would like to send a message to Peter:
"Happy Anniversary! I love you!"
We would like to thank Peter for his support of Meerie, especially if it kept her away today, of all days. She is doing great, by all reports and will be heading to High Camp tomorrow.
Jacob called this evening and said that the group tried to make a carry up the fixed lines today, but were thwarted when visibility dropped and increased snowfall made them call it short. they moved up the moderately steep snow slopes to the base of the headwall, but decided not to venture up the fixed lines. This area can be very challenging on a good, clear day, and the team decided that prudence was the better part of valor and dug their cache at about 15,600', just below the lines.
They descended and will take a rest day tomorrow before heading up to High Camp on Wednesday, weather permitting.
Often the reports we get from a given team are second hand. This has been the case with the June 28th team for the past several days. Second hand reports work great, especially when a team is doing well and there is nothing out of the ordinary to report. One pitfall of the second hand report is that it can lead to assumptions being made about what a team has done on a given day.
Jacob called in last night ans I learned that, due to the fact that they had quite light and reasonable loads, they did not make a carry up and around Windy Corner a few days back. Instead, they took a rest day at Camp 2, and then packed up camp and moved up to Camp 3 in a single push.
After their move to Camp 3 on Saturday, they took a full rest day at Camp 3 yesterday. Today they are going to carry some gear and supplies up the fixed lines. They don't actually have much to carry up to the ridge above the fixed lines, but it is important to get experience going up, and more importantly, going down the lines, in case the weather is marginal on the descent.
The slope that the fixed lines ascend is the steepest and most technical part of the route. The climbers clip into a line with a mechanical ascender and climb up in roped reams. Should one climber slip, the others are all clipped into the line, and can "arrest" any possible fall. It is a tricky section that is psychologically taxing as well, especially on the descent.
Sorry for the mix-up on the team's actual schedule, but some assumptions were made during the course of relaying information back to me, based on a typical schedule. The good thing is that the team is doing well enough to have cut a day from the typical schedule by single carrying to camp 3. They are going to slow down a bit to gain some additional acclimatization, and will probably take an second rest/acclimatization day at Camp 3 after making a carry up the fixed lines today.
I just received a call from one of our teams at High Camp. They said that the June 28th team took today to drop back to pick up their cache at 13,500'. This makes for another "active rest day," which really helps increase their acclimatization. It is also a great excuse to eat big!
The team moved up to Camp 3 at 14,200' (4128 m) yesterday. Everyone is doing great and they had a nice day moving to Camp.
Camp 3 is located in a huge glacial bowl known as Genet Basin. Huge snow faces and iconic, steep couloirs rise almost 6,000' (1830 m)above camp. The Messener Couloir, The Orient Express, The Upper West Rib, and The Rescue Gully ring the skyline to the north of their tents. All are steeped in the legend and history that make Denali such a magical place.
The team is sleeping in late this morning, and will eat a mighty breakfast before saddling up their packs to drop down to 13,500' (4114 m) where they left a cache on Friday. It only takes about 20 minutes to get down to the cache site, but will take them over an hour to lug their loads back up to camp.
The rest of today will be spent resting and reviewing some skills that the climbers will need to employ to get up the next section of the route- the headwall.
The team is waking up right now and will all join together in our custom built cook tents, which are pyramidal in shape, and have no floor. When they first moved into Camp 2, the climbers all pitched in to dig down in the snow to about shoulder height. Shelves and a bench were all carved into the snow, and the tent is erected over the pit with single, center pole. When six stoves are fired up inside to cook, it is a warm and cozy place to wake up inside.
Breakfast is sometimes a quick bowl of oatmeal or cereal, but often is a more elaborate affair, consisting of pancakes, eggs, hash browns, french toast, or, my favorite, chilaquiles (a Mexican breakfast food consisting of egg covered tortilla chips smothered in enchilada sauce and cheese!). Hot drinks are encouraged, and good coffee is there for the enlightened.
After dining, they will pack up loads to carry up Motorcycle Hill, up the next rise called Squirrel Hill, across a long plateau and finally up and around a shoulder of rock that drops off the West Buttress proper called Windy Corner.
Windy Corner can be a nice jaunt around a rocky crag or it can be a tough test of one's mettle. Below is a video I shot in 2007 of a trip around the corner that fell into the latter category. Let's hope the crew gets a nicer day to punch around the corner...
The team moved up to Camp 2 yesterday and are taking a rest day today. The rest day will help the climbers acclimatize more fully to this new altitude and help them when they move up to Camp 3 in the next couple of days.
Camp 2 is located in a stunning, glacial valley. It is surrounded by huge ice faces and teetering ice cliffs. They crew can look up at the moderately steep hill above camp, called Motorcycle Hill. Tomorrow, they will have a chance to carry big packs up this hill, as they make a carry up and around Windy Corner, an infamous stretch of the route, that can either be a beautiful "walk in the Par," or a violently windy stretch where winds screaming across the South Face stream around to the west side of Denali. Let's hope for the former!
A view looking northeast up the NE Fork of the Kahiltna at much of the south face of Denali. This is the view the team would have had from Camp 1, with the clear weather they are experiencing.
This is a shot looking southeast across Camp. 1. Mount Hunter fills the background, and the airstrip is just over the low glaciated saddle in the center of the frame. (both images are from a previous climb)
Sorry for the delay in posting, but I had some technical difficulties.
The team flew onto the glacier on Monday afternoon (June 29) and departed Base Camp in the wee hours of the morning to make the five mile hike up the Kahiltna Glacier to the site of their Camp 1 at 7,800 feet (2380 m). They traveled in the Alaskan nighttime, which means only that they were in the shade, as the sun passed low across the northern horizon, and Denali shielded them from its rays. This is to maximize what little freezing occurs at this time of year. When the snowpack freezes, the crevasse bridges are much more solid. The team reported that the glacier was in great shape, and travel was relatively easy-going.
One of the climbers, Peter, had a rough go of it yesterday. He seems to have picked up some form of G.I. bug, and despite having trained hard for this climb, it really weakened him.
Jacob called at 4 a.m. Alaska time to consult with me and two of our company doctors. The determination was that the Alaska Range was just not a good place for Peter to heal, and his weakened state was not going to permit him to go further. A descending Mountain Trip team tied him into their rope and he walked back to Base Camp with them. It is a bitter disappointment, but also a reminder that "life happens." Peter flew out this afternoon and is headed back to Anchorage as I type.
Jacob was planning on either moving camp to another site at 9,700' or "making a carry" to 10,000' today. We climb Denali making "double carries" which means we essentially pack up half of our food, supplies and kit and carry it to the next camp or to a spot just short of the next camp. We then return to our previous camp to spend the night. This eases climbers into the acclimatization process by enabling them to "climb high and sleep low." It also enables us to transport the massive loads necessary for climbing Denali without crushing ourselves by carrying it all at once.
I'll post more on their progress as I hear it. Again, my apologies for the delay in posting, but we'll keep it current from here on out.
In the far north lies one of the most magnificent ranges of mountains in the world. The Alaska Range stretches 400 miles across southcentral Alaska. It is a wild place, covered in glaciers and punctuated by rugged peaks. The crown of the range is Denali, at 20,320 feet (6194 m), the highest peak in North America. Located so close to the Arctic circle, Denali can present some of the most challenging and rugged conditions of any mountain on earth.
Each year a relatively few climbers from around the world migrate to test themselves on the slopes of Denali. Mountain Trip has been assisting these climbers achieve their Denali dreams since 1976. We love what we do and are happy to help provide you a taste of what these climbers are experiencing by updating their progress in this blog. Following the expedition, we will post numerous photos from the expedition, so please keep checking in.
On June 28, 2009, a team of climbers will arrive in Anchorage. They will be accompanied by three Mountain Trip guides:
Jacob Schmitz from Bend, Oregon
Caitlin Hague from Anchorage, Alaska
Sean McManamy from Anchorage, Alaska
Let's meet the team!
Mark Pinnock from the UK
Peter Ryder from the UK
Francois Grunenwald from France
Alex Iscoe from Canada
Dean Boshoff from South Africa
Meelie Berkle from Australia
Eileen Robberds from Australia
Stacy Ransom from the US
Please keep in mind that communication from the big mountains can be challenging and occasionally intermittent. We will post updates as often as possible, but please keep in mind the old adage, "NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS!" when it comes to communications from the Range.
Also, please be advised that while we will attempt to pass comments along to the climbers, this is not always possible. The intent of this dispatch blog is to keep you up to date on your friends' and loved ones' progress while on the expedition, and to give you an opportunity to express your support of their dreams. We are certain they will love to read all of your comments when they get back to civilization, so please do post comments.
Please keep in mind that communication from the big mountains can be challenging. We will post updates as often as possible, but remember, "NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS!"
