Entries By Dave Hahn
July 4, 2014 - 11:34 pm PT
In observance of Independence Day, we rested at 11,000 feet. Having put in a pretty full seven days of work and in the hopes of maximizing our acclimatization before making the big jump to 14,000', it seemed smart to take it easy in this beautiful place on a magnificent day. So breakfast was at a leisurely pace once the sun made it around the
West Buttress at 9:15. We put a bunch of meat into fry pans over camp stoves for a-mid afternoon simulated barbecue. For fireworks, we watched the sun blaze brilliantly in the Alaskan summer sky. The team is excited for the move to 14K tomorrow.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
On The Map
July 3, 2014 - 11:19 p.m. PT
The forecasts had us optimistic that today would work out well for a
carry to 13,500 ft. At seven AM though, it didn't seem that Denali's clouds had read the forecast. It was socked in above, below and to the West of us. Even so, there was a mass exodus from 11,000' camp underway. The five other guided groups that we've been playing leap-frog with for the past week were all busting down their camps and getting early starts at moving up. By the time we'd finished breakfast, we had the place pretty much to ourselves (to our knowledge, no other climbers have come onto the mountain behind us). The weather, although a little murky and more threatening than we'd expected, seemed stable enough for our mission. We put crampons on our boots today instead of snowshoes, an ice axe in our hands instead of two ski poles, and we elected to give our sleds the day off, loading all food and gear for the carry onto our backs. At just after 9 AM we started up the steep "Motorcycle Hill" above camp. We made steady progress onto "Squirrel Hill" and then into the "Polo Field" laid out below the end of the West Buttress. By the time we reached Windy Corner at 13,300 we were thankful for the cloudcover which was keeping things just cool enough for comfortable climbing. And significantly, Windy Corner wasn't windy. We cruised up and around it to our intended cache site at 13,500 ft. Digging a raven-proof cache occupied us for long enough that the clouds began to clear while we were at it. This meant we were treated to some spectacular views during our descent. With lightened packs, we got down without difficulty. The route was in fabulous condition due to so much recent snow. We haven't crossed an open crevasse since leaving basecamp whereas in other years we might well have stepped over a hundred at this stage of the climb. The forecasted fair weather arrived and made our afternoon and evening resting back at 11,000 camp sunny and easy.
Best Regards
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
On The Map
Hello everyone!
Today has been a day of a little work and a lot of rest. We woke up to a delightful breakfast of bagels with cream cheese and bacon and after some casual conversation it was time to go retrieve our 10,000' cache. All was well except for a minor raven attack......thankfully the only casualty was a bag of ramen noodles. It was a 3 hour round trip and before long folks were back to relaxing and drinking glacier fresh water. Our plan for the rest of the day is to keep hydrating and get ready to carry a load to
13,500 ft tomorrow. Stay tuned as we continue our slow but steady climb up this giant pile of rock and ice.
RMI Guide Ben Liken
On The Map
July 1, 2014 - 11:13 pm PT
Today was a relatively easy move for the team. We were walking out of our 9,000' camp at 7 AM when things were crisp and cold. The track was in pretty good condition due to the number of teams that had been over it in the preceding 24 hours and our loads were light. We began in clear conditions but by the time we reached the big right hand turn at
Kahiltna Pass, we were in cloud. Passing our cached gear at 10,000', we began the more serious hills leading to 11 camp. The team rolled into camp at around 11:30 AM and set to smoothing out tent platforms. Right about then it began to snow, just as had been predicted. There are at least a half dozen other guided teams in camp, a few more than we expected to see, but most are staffed by friends and acquaintances. The team took a well-earned rest for the afternoon.
Best Regards
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
On The Map
June 30, 2014 - 9:44pm PT
Hey Everybody!
Last night we got our first taste of Denali weather as a wet snow fell, dusting our camp with six fresh inches. The little storm began to lift after a leisurely breakfast of bacon, eggs, and hash browns and we were soon able to pack our bags for a carry to 10,000' feet. Along the hike we witness spectacular views down the
Kahiltna Glacier and up to the start of the West Buttress. We are now back in camp resting and awaiting a tasty dinner of tortellini prepared by Zach. All is well here in the great north as the sun splashes some light into our dinning tent.
Thanks for following along!
RMI Guide
Ben Liken
June 28, 2014 - 10:07 pm PT
So good to be on
Denali. So good to be on the move again. With our late flight onto the mountain yesterday evening, there wasn't so much time to be ready for the late season tradition of walking out of basecamp at 4 AM this morning. We built our camp and put priority on getting good rest instead. Our thinking was that with so much snow (30 inches from the last storm) that we might get by just fine without the early start. We'd plainly seen the lower Kahiltna Glacier during our flight and it certainly didn't look like crevasse bridges were going to be a problem. So we got up at a civilized 7:30 AM and did our organizational work and set out for a daytime
Denali departure. As we'd allowed ourselves to hope, crevasses were no problem. In fact the glacier was in better condition than it had been for late season in decades. We made three hour-long pulls with some fifteen-minute restbreaks in between. But in the end we decided not to push on to our normal first day camp goal of 8,000 feet. Despite our snowshoes, the walk was getting strenuous due to the great amount of unconsolidated new snow softening with the heat of the day. We camped at 7,000 ft where the East Fork meets the main glacier and we'll happily begin earlier tomorrow to get ideal surface conditions. Nice to see a few of the other late season guides on the move today as well, a bit of a reunion. Especially nice to hear from
Adam Knoff at 11K on the radio and
Billy Nugent on top.
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
June 27, 2014 - 12:00 am PT
We were up and hustling to get ready this morning, anxious for the chance to get on
Mount McKinley. But it turned out, after breakfast and a walk in the rain to the airstrip, that there wasn't too great a chance for flying today. The word was that several feet of new snow had fallen overnight at Basecamp. The snow, cloud and wind were predicted to continue up there for the day, but we were put on standby just in case things broke. We made good use of the day in the
K2 Aviation hangar, reviewing rope techniques for glacier travel. The rain and low cloud persisted, but we stayed dry enough. We had one more "last" dinner in town and turned in to be ready for another day and another try.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
On The Map
June 25, 2014 - 11:35pm PT
A rainy and grey morning in Talkeetna didn't stop our team from a seven o'clock breakfast meeting at Talkeetna's great Roadhouse. We were primed and ready for our important orientation at the
Talkeetna Ranger Station at 8:30. Our climbers were honored to have Roger Robinson himself give the presentation. Roger has been climbing Denali and rescuing Denali climbers for close to four decades now. Then it was out to the K2 Aviation hangar where we spread out our gear and got down to the nuts and bolts of figuring out exactly what to bring on the climb and what to leave behind. It took much of the afternoon to sort gear and to get it all weighed, inventoried and ready for flying. So it became an "indoors" day, which was just fine. Rain kept falling and there was precious little flying going on out at the normally bustling Talkeetna Airport. The team got together finally for what we hope will be our last dinner in town for some time. It was a fine feast, but we'd just as soon be on climbing rations when supper time rolls around tomorrow.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide
Dave Hahn
June 25, 2014 - 12:26 am PT
And so it begins... The last
RMI Denali team of 2014 took shape today in the Anchorage airport. We assembled, seven climbers and four guides from around the world lugging about 23 or 24 giant duffel bags of cold weather gear. The team took a ride with Denali Overland, our shuttle service to Talkeetna. The three hour trip was broken by a stop for provisions in Wasilla, but then we powered on up the Parks highway to our Talkeetna turnoff. We had pretty good views of the Chugach Range as we left Anchorage but the Alaska Range stayed mostly hidden under cloud. There were some scattered rain showers to see, and a Bald Eagle or two, but no moose this time. We were in Talkeetna by 8:30 PM and getting settled into the comfortable Talkeetna Motel not much later. The big work of preparing to fly onto Denali begins in the morning.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
In Lukla, roughly eight thousand vertical feet below our
Everest Basecamp home of the past three weeks, we were pretty comfortable. But just for one night. The team was awake by five am yesterday, eating by 5:30 and walking over to the airport check-in at six. We watched -partly in awe, partly in horror- as Twin Otters, Dorniers and A-Stars roared in and out of the compact one acre loading and unloading zone, pirouetting into place, revving engines, disgorging trekkers, cases of beer and heavy bags of rice at a frenetic pace. When summoned by frantic hand gestures, we shouldered our packs, walked out onto the tarmac and took over the seats in a Twin.
A few minutes later, we were in the air, over a few craggy passes and cruising toward Kathmandu. Upon landing, we were no-longer climbers, or even would-be climbers, we were happily transformed to overdressed tourists. As such we took off a few layers and began showering, shaving and eating eating eating.
Although we are still far from home, the program is finished. We continue to enjoy each other's company, we still rely on one another to make sense of the sad events and unexpected turns our trip has taken. The team is grateful that so many have followed our journey on the blog and offered up kind words and support.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Go KB and the rest of the team!! The view from the armchair is great!
Posted by: Geoff Clark on 7/5/2014 at 6:02 pm
Dave, Always enjoy your climbing blogs. Good luck and safe climbing to you and your group. (Jeff Olson of Whittaker/Viesturs climb turned Hahn/Tucker).
Posted by: Jeff Olson on 7/5/2014 at 11:06 am
View All Comments