What a difference a day makes. Things didn't seem a whole lot better, first thing this morning. Talkeetna was still a little dim and grey with low cloud lurking as we headed out to the airstrip. It took a few hours of waiting for things to come around. Our pilots figured out a clear path in to the Kahiltna, despite a fair amount of lingering clouds hiding the mountains. What we were able to see was stunning and spectacular, as if to make up for all that was hidden. Unbelievably steep and immense mountains began to pop up all around us as we entered the heart of the range. Glaciers, snow and random ice seemed to hang on every possible flank. The K2 pilots did their normal perfect approach and landing with the big ski equipped DeHaviland Otters. We'd taken off from town at 11:30 AM and we were unloading gear on the Southeast Fork of the Kahiltna 35 minutes later. At basecamp it was intensely sunny and warm with no wind whatsoever. The cloud cover evaporated and we were treated to grand views of Mount Hunter, Mount Foraker and even Denali on occasion. We built camp and began reviewing glacier travel techniques. There was plenty to get done and we worked throughout the afternoon and evening at divy-ing loads and getting rigged for an early morning move to camp at 7,800 ft. What we could see from the planes backed up what we've been hearing from other climbers... conditions on the lower glacier are excellent.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
This is the June 19th Denali expedition sending love from 14,000 foot camp. We received a foot of fresh snow last night distracting us from our scheduled plan of carrying loads to the top of the fixed lines at 16,200 feet. Because of this unexpected delay we are resting today fending off climbers soliciting food to lighten their loads for the descent.
We have decided to pass the phone to let each team member send a personal hey to friends and family.
This one goes out to my wife Birgen and son Liam. I have only tried to spoon Uchal twice thinking of you. He elbowed me both times. I miss you as much as ever and can' t wait to get home to you both.....
DG here. Miss and love you all. Doing great up here and everything is rock steady. Hugs Oz and see you soon. Can't wait for you to join me.
It's Chris. Special thanks to all of you who posted messages and words of encouragement on the blog. It means a lot and gives me some extra fuel for the push up the peak. Nickie - I love you so much and can't wait to see you again after a successful trip. Cheers!
This is Michael U. I hope all is well back home and abroad! I miss and love you all so much. O Sorry for leaving you to care for the new K-9. Grace, HB, Samer, Charlotte, Lulu, and the rest of the family - I can't wait to see you when I get home.
Greetings from JJ, amazing group of guys, amazing mounting and truly an experience of a lifetime to be here. Priorities change when life is stripped to the essentials. Peace, joy and love of friends and family take in a new and heightened priority. Please know I am very safe and that my love for you is growing with each step. I miss you all and have many big hugs in store for all upon my return, especially the new love of my life. See you at the wedding if not sooner. Love, John
Hello fam & friends--Tim here. It's hard to explain what the top of our continent looks like--truly amazing! Thx for all of your posts, luv sharing them in the "posh" (a funky community eating/gathering area). Great guides & climbing team, we're all looking up at the top now.
Love & miss you all--literally dreaming of you nightly--altitude makes for some strange dreams BTW.
Thx for covering me during cherry harvest & all the other "stuff." See you in a couple of weeks!!!
John, Great to hear all of you are doing fine. We are just home from the “small hills of NC” As we go along in life we do learn more of love, laughter and thankfulness. Blessings to all of you climbing. Jackie and Paul
Posted by: Jackie Winchell on 7/1/2012 at 9:39 pm
What no news fro you Nelson?? I know that you are having a trip of a lifetime. Check in next time the phone goes around. The moms in KC (that would be Mrs. G and me) are worried :-) Can’t wait to see you ... and the amazing photos. I would definitely be up for Killi next year. Lots of love, Mom
Posted by: Jennifer Collet on 6/30/2012 at 5:40 am
Hello there Mark Tucker here calling from the Carstensz Pyramid Expedition. Here in Ugimba spending quality time with Moni tribesmen. A Great welcome. This is where our lead local guide is from and it is pretty amazing as you can imagine. We were treated to quite a festival and a very formal traditional dance. This is the real deal, just like the pictures you would see in National Geographic. This is it, this is pure in the purest form. It has been one heck-of-a day, we are just smoked, the whole team is already bedded down and it is still pretty early.
We’ve probably got another 2 or 3 power days in the jungle where every step takes full concentration team is doing fantastic. I'm so impressed with efforts in there. They are adjusting to all of the incredibly challenging root climbs, there were a couple of small cliffs and moving the rivers having to build little bridges wading in rubber boots almost over the top, as a matter of fact, somebody may have actually had a full submersion. We are all doing pretty well, and WOW this place is amazing. It didn't really rain until about 4 o'clock, and then they turn on the spigot and it's full blast. We are happy where we are at.
I can't wait to show some pictures because this is just an incredible experience, and we hope to continue enjoying it. Big day tomorrow and we'll do our best to keep checking in. So for now it's called “Amakane” (ah-mah-kah-neh) it just keeps people smiling and it's the greatest greeting.
We will keep checking in, Amakane!
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
Success!
The gang went to bed with another deceptively improving weather trend only to wake up (for the third time this trip) in the middle of the night to more stormy weather. We decided that since this was our last chance we'd give a hail Mary attempt. After a quick breakfast and some tinkering with gear and backpacks the time came for us to push out. Surprisingly, the winds had started calming down, which heartened the guides at least a little bit. As it turned out, that abatement was indeed only temporary...
We climbed to the edge of the glacier and roped/cramponed up, and after only an hour or two in the elements we were starting to ice up. Somehow everybody kept it together and we continued upwards into worsening winds, winding our way through a jumble of a glacier and then skirting around the massive rock face of Yanasacha. Weather was bad most of the day but after reaching the upper slopes of the mountain we were fully exposed. When we reached the summit (half of us crawling) we were elated but couldn't stay long because of the blastingly continuous 50 mph wind and the fact that were covered with over and inch (yes an inch!) of ice from being in a freezing lenticular cloud all day. The guys were a little beat but pulled it together to descend like champs all the way back down to the refugio. All in all we were out in the storm for a little over 10 hours, managing to bag the summit and safely descend.
We were greeted back at the refugio by Victor, our driver, who had hiked up from the parking lot to hang out. Knowing our ride was waiting down the hill, we celebrated with a quick beer and crammed all of our crap into our packs. A short walk down a scree field brought us to the van which brought us back to civilization in Quito!
The team showered up and hit the town for a fabulous multi-course meal complete with wine and pisco to celebrate properly. Hopefully folks weren't too ragged making their early a.m. flights.
I'd like to thank a great group of guys for making this such a fun and memorable trip (pako's ipa, triple cheeseburgers, two left crampons, pansies, sock boiling, knee taking, etc.) and thank Jaime and Diego for being awesome guides and a pleasure to work with. Thanks again everybody!
Signing off, for now...
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
Update at 12:12 pm PST: The team is flying into basecamp! The weather cooperated for flights and we expect to hear from the team once they are settled on the glacier.
12:00 am PST:
The plan was for us to get started with our Denali expedition today. We needed good mountain flying weather. We had high hopes, but as it turned out, we also had low clouds. It was on the dark and rainy side if things as we finished breakfast and walked out toward the airstrip in Talkeetna. During the course of the day, the cloud cover would lighten here and there and we monitored alternating reports that it was getting better or worse now and again at our intended basecamp on the Southeast Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier... But in the end, the upshot was that conditions never really got good enough for our pilots to risk flights into the range.
The team took the delay without great concern, we passed the time hanging at the hangar, playing ping pong, listening to music and catching up on email and current events. We enjoyed fine Talkeetna meals at various restaurants and we took advantage of the comforts of one more day of civilization. Into the mountains tomorrow. Possibly.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Mike Walter called at 12:00 a.m. Friday morning and reported that he and the team had reached 17,000’ Camp on Mt. McKinley. They had a nice day of climbing with light snow and no wind. They rolled into camp at about 5:00 p.m., and are now resting. The team may take a rest day at 17,000 but if everyone is feeling good they might just go for the top.
Good Luck Team!
Delighted you had the chance to move onward and upward, well done team! A promise of beer, the weather cleared…tricky, isn’t it??!
Continued success for all,
liz
Our Four Day Summit Climb Teams led by RMI Guides Win Whittaker and Eric Frank reached the top of Cathedral Gap today, but strong winds and heavy precipitation forced them to turn back. The teams have left Camp Muir and we expect the back at Ashford Basecamp in the early afternoon.
After a few snowy days at our 11K camp, we hoped for some kinder weather for our move to 14,000'. We all agree we got too much of a good thing. Yesterday's move validated the old mountaineering saying that "you either freeze or fry." Wednesday morning was clear, but quite cold at 11K. We ate our warm breakfast, anxiously awaiting the sun to warm our tents before we packed up to move. The cool morning climb up Motorcycle Hill quickly turned into a sweltering overly sunny slog through the Polo Fields and around Windy Corner which lacked the then desired wind of which it got its name. After refueling and rehydrating the well-oiled machine we pulled into camp 4 (14,000') at 5 pm. We were welcomed by our other RMI team, light snow, and many other climbers at this small makeshift alpine village.
Today (Thursday), we returned to Windy Corner to retrieve our cache of food and equipment in much of the same weather conditions as the day before. We are now resting back at 14,000' awaiting our possible carry up the fixed lines to 16,000' tomorrow.
To our many fans out there who are leaving messages on our blog, rest assured they have reached us!
Tuesday night over dinner we passed the iPhone around for all to read the kind words from friends and family. Keep them coming!
Until tomorrow,
RMI Guides Mike Uchal, Adam Knoff, Zeb Blais, and our team at 14,000'
Stay classy lower 48!
Hi to Mike R and fellow climbers. I am soo amazed by your courage, strength, and perseverance, you should be very proud of yourselves as I am of you Mike!I luv reading all the messages including the other teams as well, Its absolutely unimaginable to me, what you must be experiencing. Enjoy what you can. Thinking about you. Love Cheri
Posted by: Cheri on 6/29/2012 at 6:54 pm
Greetings John!
We are all so excited about your amazing adventure! Deann is on the phone with me right now and we are still talking about you! Enjoy your travels!
Good Evening, good evening from the Carstensz Pyramid team. We are at Gamagai Village and we have had an incredible day. We had a beautiful flight over the jungle, we were greeted in Sugapa by hundreds of people, friendly, welcoming, and we began our trek on jeeps, very fun. We rode for about 10 minutes and then began our jungle walk. Although we expected a lot of rain and there were clouds all around, it did not rain on us as we went through first couple of villages. It wasn’t until the last couple hours that we experienced the deluge of the jungle. We set up our tents once we got to Gamagai Village but we are not wet a bit, and the reason why is that they welcomed us to do some indoor camping at the local church.
We are enjoying a dinner of cheese and all kinds of good food. We are going to get ready for another big day tomorrow, a great fun day. We are looking forward to what the mountain has in store for us and we will catch up in a day or two.
All the Best,
Alex Van Steen, Mark Tucker and the first inaugural RMI Carstensz Pyramid Expedition team.
Our Four Day Summit Climb Led by RMI Guide Brent Okita reached the summit of Mt. Rainier today. The team experienced clear weather, but strong winds. They were able to spend a short amount of time on top and are now descending back to Camp Muir.
RMI Guide Andres Marin and the Expedition Skills Seminar – Kautz Team made a summit attempt this morning, but experienced much different conditions on the Kautz route and were forced to turn back due to strong winds. The team will spend the rest of their time on the mountain honing their mountaineering skills.
Congratulations to today's teams!
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Mark, great going!
Watching as I prepare to head into 120 degrees of the Mojave Desert. Send some ice!
Jan
Posted by: Jan Wilson on 7/2/2012 at 5:57 am
Sounds amazing. Enjoy. Thinking of you
Posted by: Carolyn on 6/30/2012 at 6:53 am
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