A Final Post from Chris

Hello,
This last blog entry is being written from my cozy warm house after a beautiful day spent with my family in Olympic National Park in Washington State. One way such a state of bliss is achieved is by looking at life through a different lens for a time. This is a good thing to do sometimes; 11 friends and I recently had the good fortune to have Denali be the focus of our reality for nineteen days.

Denali challenged us early (patience) by not allowing us to fly onto its flanks for the first five days of our trip. Once we arrived, almost half of our team became inflicted by a serious sinus infection. This we lost Kate to. Things were not looking good.

To the patient and persistent climber good things can happen. First, one nice weather day, then two, three, four. Light loads and good meals. Great camaraderie, a little bit of luck and the next thing we knew, high camp was home. The altitude finally dug its wicked claws into two of our team members here; it was a strong effort to get to this point on the mountain. The remaining eight of us were lucky enough to climb to the top the next day. Regardless of each climbers “’high point”, Denali had left an impression on each of us and, hopefully, you who were following our adventure on this blog.

Thanks for the support.
Chris

Back to civilization.

The team is all back in Anchorage tonight, and eating dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, the Glacier Brewhouse this evening. They had a big night travelling from high camp to base camp in one big push, with a break for food and a nap at 11,200 ft (Camp 2) on the way down. They are all doing great, if a bit tired and smelly. The weather wasn't perfect, but they were still good enough to get the planes in and out of base camp and get everyone to Talkeetna this afternoon. I picked them up after lunch in Talkeetna and drove the bunch of smelly climbers back to Anchorage this evening.

Congratulations to the whole team for a safe and successful trip!

We'll have Chris Kerrick do a final trip report in the next day or two to wrap up this trip. Thanks for tuning in.

Coming on down.

After a beautiful summit day yesterday, they slept in a bit this morning and then started the journey back down. Coming down goes pretty quickly and most teams will be down in just a couple of days covering the terrain that took them almost 2 weeks to climb up. They are well motivated to get down for showers, fresh food, and of course their friends and family.

Chris called just as they were getting ready to leave high camp this (later) morning, and they are all doing great.

SUMMIT!!!

There were two messages left on our podcast phone from the team. It sounds like they had an amazing day, with clear calm weather and the views were just stunning! I could go on and on, but you should hear it straight from their breathless mouths...

Part 1:




Part 2:

Rest Day at High Camp

It was a day of rest for the team. They called in this evening to let us know all is well at 17,200 feet. The tents are well protected behind walls of snow and the activities today revolved around reading and eating. Preparations are being made for the big push to the summit tomorrow, so stay tuned to see if tomorrow proves to be summit day. Think happy weather thoughts.

High Camp! 17,200 ft

They moved to High Camp Today at 17,200 ft!! It was a beautiful sunny day and there was hardly a breath of wind as they moved from the 14,000 ft basin up to the W. Buttress ridge, and on up to Camp 4. There are some tired climbers up there tonight, but everybody is doing well, and they'll likely get a shot at the summit in the next couple of days.

The climbing on the ridge leading into high camp is some of the most beautiful on the entire route, and they had a great day to really enjoy it.

They arrived in camp by mid-day, set up tents, melted snow for water, cooked dinner, and are settling in for the night.

Here's Chris Kerrick with the evening call!

Rest Day

Today was a day to recover and acclimate for our June 13th team. They slept in, ate a big breakfast, and then took naps. Not too bad. It was a much needed recovery day, several team members have been feeling like they might have a cold, so a day off was great. Hopefully they'll all feel better tomorrow.

It snowed about 1 1/2 feet at Camp3 last night, so they woke up to a pretty good blanket of new snow. That's summer on Denali.

Tomorrow they hope to move up to high camp at 17,200 ft.