Entries By alan davis

Thursday, June 10, 2021 - 4:56 pm PT

Today was not a super nice day, but it was nice enough! We cached additional food and supplies at 13,500 and felt great. This puts us in position to move to 14,000' Camp when we are ready and weather allows. It looks like the weather should be decent tomorrow before the next round of storms come in. Stay tuned to follow our progress tomorrow!!

RMI Guide JT Schmitt and team

Wednesday, June 9, 2021 - 9:40 pm PT

We woke up hoping to cache below 14,000 Camp, the mountain had other plans so we spent the day eating, reading, relaxing, and building a snow fort. Hopefully tomorrow the weather complies and we can move supplies up the mountain.

RMI Guide Kiira Antenucci

Tuesday, June 8th, 2021 - 3:34 pm PT

We slept in till ten today, then enjoyed a delectable brunch of bagels and lox. Seems like an interesting dichotomy to be eating such luxurious meals in such an inhospitable place.

We are spending the remainder of the day resting, eating and stocking up on calories and sleep to give us the strength we need to hopefully carry to just below 14,000' Camp tomorrow.

RMI Guides JT, Kiira, Alan and the RMI team

Tuesday, June 8, 2021 - 1:54 am PT

We’ve been working quite hard to do our due diligence to get all moved to Denali's 11K camp before the forecasted storm moved in. And today we did just that. As we were returning from our cache at 9,800' the storm hit in full force, but that was no issue for us as we had a fortified camp built and now have all our supplies with us at 11K camp.

We are currently hunkered in our tents listening to the wind blow and the snow pile up. We are all eagerly anticipating a much deserved rest day tomorrow.

RMI Guide JT Schmitt and the RMI team

Monday, June 7, 2021 - 5:38 am PT

We made it to 11,000' Camp last night! Even though our packs were lighter after our cache yesterday, the walk uphill wasn’t easy. The team put in the work to make it to camp before flurries of snow started to fall. Making it to camp was only half the work and we worked into the early hours of the morning setting up tents, melting snow for water, and cooking dinner. The team is settled into our new camp and we couldn’t be more excited to crawl into our sleeping bags!

RMI Guide Kiira Antenucci and the RMI team

Sunday, June 6, 2021 - 6:57 am PT

We woke up this afternoon after a delightful day of sleeping, and once again avoided the heat on our carry to 9,800 feet. We are now all prepped and ready to move to Denali's 11,000-foot camp as soon as weather permits!

RMI Guides Alan Davis, Kiira Antenucci and JT Schmitt

Saturday, June 5, 2021 - 10:49 am PT

After a couple of relatively inactive days, we left base camp like a bunch of caged animals who had recently tasted freedom for the first time.

The crew walked across the Kahiltna with confidence and strength under a clear Alaskan night sky, only a few clouds hanging like ornaments from the peaks of Denali, Foraker, Crosson and the Kahiltna dome.

We made it to camp one in great time, the snow having frozen to a beautiful supportable crust that felt more convenient to walk across than a city sidewalk, and the temperatures were ideal for carrying heavy loads.

We are now hiding from another boisterous Alaskan sun, watching the snow melt and looking forward to some much needed and deserved rest before we wake up this evening to hopefully carry tonight.

RMI Guides JT Schmitt, Alan Davis, Kiira Antenucci and Team 

Friday, June 4, 2021 - 3:09 pm PT

After our dry run yesterday, we got to do the real thing today. We landed on to the Kahiltna at precisely 10 am, and boy was it already hot! We were hoping to hit the ground running, but talking to teams coming off the lower Kahiltna and looking at the temps we decided to take the day to review skills, dig a cache and organize.

Due to the hot temps we are switching to a night schedule so we will sleep through the heat of the day today and depart when things firm up! Morale is high and we are super excited to be on the mountain!

RMI Guide JT Schmitt and team

Thursday, June 3, 2021 - 11:37 am PT

We woke up early this morning to try to get the first flight slot out this morning, and optimistically we got our boots on and loaded up the planes. Unfortunately, as things often happen in Alaska, we got turned around just as we were entering the Alaska Range due to low visibility. We are now back in Talkeetna anxiously awaiting our next opportunity to fly. Stay tuned.

RMI Guide JT Schmitt

The Four Day Climb May 27 - 30 led by RMI Guides Andy Bond and Alan Davis reported pockets of wind slabs on the steeper portions of the route which forced the teams to turn around at 12,800’.  They enjoyed a spectacular sunrise with great views as they descended to Camp Muir.

Photo: Andy Bond