Entries from Expedition Dispatches

Wednesday, June 17, 2025  - 10:20 am PT

Well, like all good things, this too must come to an end. Sorry we’ve been a bit MIA since summit day—those final days all start to blur together. You don’t get much downtime until you're either sitting at the airstrip waiting out the weather or lucky enough to fly straight to Talkeetna.

Three days ago, on June 14th, we stood on top. The following morning, June 15th, the team packed up camp and began the long, challenging descent. We dropped down the West Buttress around noon, descended the fixed lines, and stopped at 14,000' Camp for a brief six-hour nap.

After our rest, we had a quick dinner at midnight, then loaded up all of our gear from the last two weeks and began the march back to basecamp. We made our way around Windy Corner, down Squirrel and Motorcycle Hill, and finally back to 11,000' Camp. There, we whispered hellos to Dom’s team—who were sound asleep—grabbed our cache, transitioned back to snowshoes, and continued past Camp One to basecamp.

By around 9 a.m. on the morning of June 16th, we arrived at basecamp to good weather and the chance to fly straight off the glacier. By noon, we were back in Talkeetna wearing flip-flops, and by 2 p.m., we were sharing beers and laughter, wrapping up our expedition at the Brew Pub.

It’s all been a bit of a haze—amazing, exhausting, unforgettable. In the moment, it felt like it moved slowly, but now that we’re back on dry land, it’s hard to believe how fast it all went by.

If you've been following me for years, you know I'm a fan of Hiakus...

Fresh socks, frozen boots
Glacier sunburn, summit views
Fly me to a beer

RMI Guide Nikki Champion

RMI Guides Seth Burns and Joe Crawford led their Five Day climb teams to the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning.  Seth radioed from the crater rim at 8:47 am. Its a goregous day on the mountain with clear skies and cool temperatures.  After spending some time in the crater the team will descend to Camp Muir and spend their second night on the mountain. Tomorrow they will continue down to Paradise.

Nice work today team!

Monday, June 16, 2025 - 7:53 pm PT

Our sled companies:

The Happy Cappy’s Express

Sled Dawg Logistics

Snow B.E.T.S Supply Co.

are here at 11,000 feet, ready to help you will all your needs.  We even offer cache back.   Please note: Trail breaking to retrieve a lost water bottle in the Polo Fields comes at an additional. 

Today we got to visit the top of Motorcycle Hill, Squirrel Hill and the Polo Fields before caching our food and gear for the move to 14,000' Camp.  Unfortunately, the excursion brochure was wrong.  Motorcycles were not included, no squirrels to see on the hill and no Polo was being played.  The trek was worth the views and will still give a 5 star on Google Review. As we venture into new markets and camps, our logistic companies look forward offering our services at 14,000 camp very soon.   Just remember, you call, we haul. 

Shout out to our amazing leaders; Dom, Ben, and Mike.   It’s hard to put in words how much we appreciate all the warm drinks, hot chow, dressed ropes and everything between. 

On a personal note, Happy Birthday to my beautiful wife, Lauren.  Wells and Winn please give her an extra hug and kiss from me.   

Love and miss yall.  

- RMI Climber Andrew

The Four Day Climbs led by RMI Guides Casey Grom and Lael Butler reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning! The teams were on the summit around 7:45 am and enjoying the beautiful weather. We look forward to seeing them back in Ashford later this afternoon.

Congratulations climbers!

Sunday, June 15, 2025 - 10:01 pm PT

It was a long but good day of getting ready to go climbing.  The team met for a fine breakfast at the Swiss Alaska.  We began by hearing out each other’s motivations and inspirations for taking on such a challenge.  We talked over our priorities and strategies and then we got out to the airplane hangar to go through the gear.  Breaking up the day, we made a run over to the National Park Service ranger station in Talkeetna to register and receive a presentation on keeping the mountain clean and ourselves healthy.  But the bulk of the day was spent at the hangar, listening to trains and airplanes revving up and rattling past as we packed and weighed gear for the climb.  We’d finished by early evening and relaxed in town at Mile High Pizza Pie.  Either a little luck we’ll load up the planes and go climbing in the morning. 

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

June 15, 2025 - 8:38 pm PT

Gooooood evening Denali blog followers and welcome back to your personal tell all of mountain news, gossip, and glory. Today, just like the itsy bitsy spider we climbed that spout again. We were gently awoken by our guides at  5:30 and left for a 6:45 start back down the mountain to our cache below. At 10,000 feet we… and by we I mean our relentless guides…  dug out our cache filled with snacks, solar panels, clean clothes, and summit gear. And thank god I was reunited with my cheese. ‘Twas a short jaunt back up to 11,000' Camp where we enjoyed bagels with bacon and honey jalapeño cream cheese. Contrary to yesterday’s blog, the American Canadian peace balance now falls in the hands of the Oilers and Panthers. 

We then got a quick refresher course on how moving up the rest of the mountain will go as we ditch our snow shoes and move into crampons. A few of us gathered in a big circle and traded cheeses of all kinds until we made certain none of us would ever poop again.

Tomorrow we await to see what the weather brings in hope of moving more gear up to the next cache.

I continue to think about and question why a person takes on an effort such as this. Perhaps there’s answers we think the mountain holds, perhaps a bottomless pit of an ego we are trying to fill, the need for contrast from our everyday lives, or maybe it’s just the love of mountains and pushing ourselves to the jagged edge of our capabilities. No matter the reason, it’s an honor to be here with such talented and kind human beings. Sitting here at 11,000 ft our team has no idea what the future holds, to that I raise a toast to my fellow climbers at all stages on Denali… To the mountains we are meant to summit, and the ones we are not, may we enjoy the company, the views, and the climb either way.

I want to say thank you to my parents, I wouldn’t be here without you, and a special shout out to Moose Hockey Alaska, and the 525 bulldogs, YBYSA!

Love,

RMI Climber Mikayla

The Four Day Climb June 12 - 15 led by RMI Guides Henry Coppolillo and Jackson Breen, reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning around 6:20 am.  Henry reported a beautiful and slightly busy day on the mountain.  The skies were clear and winds low.  The teams enjoyed some time in the summit crater before starting their descent from the crater rim.  Once back at Camp Muir, they repacked and descended the remaining 4,500'.  This afternoon they will complete their adventure with a small ceremony.

Congratulations to today's climbers!

Received June 15, 2025 - 12:04 pm PT 

June 14, 2025

Today is day 6 since we first met at Anchorage airport.
After waking it at 2 AM and taking all my strength to get out of my sleeping bag in the cold night (the worst part of the day for me!), we climbed from camp 1 to camp 2 and made our biggest elevation gain yet, 1000m, with moderately heavy bags and sleds. It was quite the workout! | arrived with a small headache, hopefully not related to altitude because it's what scares me the most. When you arrive at camp, you do not just install your tent and call it a day, you have to shovel the hell out of that place to build your toilets and dining tent. We try to help the guides but they are doing a tremendous job.

Once again, I was impressed by the power of the elements, the sun is so strong at this latitude in summer and it reflects on the snow everywhere so you're literally cooking. That's why we have walked at "night" up until now (it's never really dark). We haven't experience the other hazards of nature yet, such as bad weather, extreme cold or high altitude. The mountain imposes respect. Despite that the harder is yet to come, I think the group has a good start!

Considérant le contexte géopolitique actuel, je suis également soulagé de bien m'intégrer en étant le seul Canadien dans un groupe 100% American (although one was born in Ireland and is very comedic). I don't feel that they want to invade my country, they are rather very friendly. Ceci dit, personne n'a encore osé mentionner celui-dont-on-ne-doit-pas-prononcer-le-nom lo!! Salutations à Samu, maman, papa et mes amis, hâte de vous revoir! On se croise les doigts que tout se passe bien!

RMI Climber Etienne

P.s. Joyeux anniversaire et bonne fête des pères papa!

Saturday, June 14, 2025 - 11:25 pm PT

Nobody missed a flight and all the bags arrived just fine.  They came from Norway and New Zealand and a few places in between.  Our team -8 climbers and four guides- got together as planned in the Anchorage airport.  We talked gear and logistics briefly before relocating to the curb for our van shuttle to Talkeetna.  It was a day of blazing sun and wide open blue sky in Alaska. 
We broke up the three hour drive with a stop for groceries in Wasilla and then pushed on to Talkeetna, rolling in at about 6:30 PM.  Along the way we had been granted a few breathtaking views of the Alaska Range.  Our first stop was the K2 Aviation hangar to drop off the big bags of gear.  Next we checked in at the Swiss Alaska Inn.  The team then strolled ten minutes through the birch forest and over the railroad tracks to beautiful downtown Talkeetna.  The town was bustling with tourists and the odd climbing team.  We ate our fill at the brewery and then walked the 100 meter length of town to the banks of the mighty Susitna River.  McKinley, Hunter and Foraker shot up into the sky across the river… impossibly high.  Or maybe just possible.  We’ll see.  Tomorrow we get started… packing and prepping in earnest. 

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

The RMI Team led by Dustin Wittmier climbed strong from 17,000' Camp to the summit of Mt. McKinley. They gained the summit ridge at 4:45 pm local time and continued to the summit at 20,310' arriving at 5: 28 pm Alaska time on Saturday, June 14th.  

After enjoying some time on top, the team descended to 17,000' Camp reaching camp around 10 pm local time where they spent the night.

Congratulations to today's climbers!