Entries from Denali

Monday, July 3, 2023 - 12:28 am PT

We battled our way down to 11,000 ft.  A big day of work.  Lots of packing, lots of dicey climbing down the tricky steps of the West Buttress. This day was supposed to be a nice one, but we could see every sign that the storm was coming in early.  We had to fight a little to get around Windy Corner. It snowed on us as we climbed down and as we fought to get a camp up at 11,000'. But we are happy to have made such progress should the storm now come in hard.

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Sunday, July 2, 2023 - 3:56 am

The RMI Denali Expedition June 11 led by RMI Guide Dominic Cifelli reached the summit of Denali on Saturday evening.  The team is safely back to camp at 17,000'.

Nice work team!

July 2, 2023 - 4:16 am PT

Summit!!! On a fine day. A little bit of a long one though -fifteen hours round trip. We got tangled with a couple of other guided parties.  Those other teams were breaking trail, so it is tough to fault them for being slow. We were on top at 8:30 PM and back to 17,000' Camp just after 2 AM. The weather was very nice, but it wasn't the warmest day on top.  Most of us had on all the clothing we had. 

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

People like to throw around the word ‘Conquer’ in reference to the mountains they climb. As if they defeated the mountain when they touched its apex. I find this to be a distasteful representation of summiting a mountain and as we crawled into our sleeping bags in the crisp, cold air of Denali’s 17,200K we certainly didn’t feel like conquerors. Tired, cold, and atrophied from the last 18 days on the mountain we slept knowing that Denali had granted us the opportunity to touch its peak and not that we had bested it.

The team awoke to clear skies and one of the first green lights we received from Denali, it was time to climb. At 10:25, we started our journey upward not reaching the summit until a hard, but well fought, ~10 hours. We are back down at High Camp; tired, sore, but satisfied with the effort and accomplishment. We start downward tomorrow in search of all of the cravings we have been fantasizing about.

RMI Guide Dominic Cifelli

Friday, June 30, 2023 11:47 pm PDT

The gods of Denali blessed the team with the weather window needed to begin the hardest three days of our lives. We began our assault up The Wall and eventually the fixed lines. The sun was surprisingly warm and persistent. The black rocks jutting from the frozen snow reminded me constantly of the Oreo McFlurry I will no doubt consume when I get off here. We are thinking of you all as we attempt to summit tomorrow. 

RMI Climber Travis and Team

Saturday, July 1, 2023 1:12 AM PDT

Right on schedule, the clouds cleared out and the wind dropped down. First nice day we've had, actually. We used it well. The team made the jump to 17,200' feet. It was tough climbing and the packs got even bigger and heavier when we stopped at 16,200' feet to add yesterday's loads. But we got 'r done. The views were amazing, considering that the team really hadn't seen much of our surroundings yet. We have a forecast of fine weather tomorrow. Perhaps we go up.

RMI Guide Dave Hahn & Team

Thursday, June 29, 2023 10:25 pm PDT

Not much of a break in the weather today but we made the best of it. We watched, waited, and slow-rolled and then went for it, leaving camp at noon.  There was still snow falling, but the wind had quit. We trudged up to the fixed lines and then ascended them with little difficulty, reaching 16,200 ft. Nobody got to enjoy the spectacular views as we were still locked in cloud and snow, but we cached our supplies and dropped back down, reaching camp at 6PM.

Hoping for some clearing tomorrow (as usual) we would like to move to 17,200ft.

RMI Guide Dave Hahn and Team

As we arose from our tents again at 14,000’ camp, fresh snow covered everything as if a frozen Baja Blast machine broke in the middle of the night and began spewing as far as the eye could see.

Today marked a choice, go for it, and continue up beautiful Denali, or stay here at14,000’ Camp for another night, and wait for a better window. Upon first view of the surroundings, the choice was clear, spend one more day resting. This journey has been largely about patience, especially these last few days, but we are on the home stretch now, also just days away now from returning to civilization…

All the fish tacos, burritos and fajitas, Doritos, and Fritos, and Cheetos, pizza, burgers and glizzies and frozen margaritas All these and more, await at Talkeetna

Climber Joey Myers & Team

Wednesday, June 28, 2023 - 10:39 pm PT

Our climb yesterday earned us a well deserved rest day. After sleeping in we were awoken to some delicious extra cheesy breakfast burritos. This was followed by a musical production of “These Boots Were Made For Climbing” by the soon to be famous Denali 10 (look for us on TikTok). Stay tuned for our upcoming show “Dancing on Denali”, which will include some tasteful  nude scenes as well. The rest of our day was spent relaxing as we look forward to beginning our summit push either tomorrow or Friday.

RMI Climber Mark Kulow

Wednesday, June 28, 2023 - 9:41 pm PT

We celebrated Tibor's birthday with a storm day and a no-bake cheesecake.  Familiar weather to us, clouds and snow with winds aloft kept us confined to 14,000ft Camp. We slept, we ate, we dug snow and cut snow blocks. We talked and we read... we passed time.  Looking forward to going climbing again when the storm quits.

RMI Guide Dave Hahn