Entries By seth burns

Monday, June 1st - 11PM PST

Good fortune rewards the bold.

We woke craving the sun. Shivering, yet still smiling, our breakfast of grits and pop tarts fueled our warm laughs and usual morning camaraderie. When finished, we all knew what we needed to do. Today was our acclimatization climb. Now strong worriers against our ever present enemy, the cold, we roped up and left camp just as the rest of the 14k village began to rise. We had the buttress to ourselves and our temperatures rose back to normal, the unimaginable views ripened as we climbed higher into the thin air. For much of our crew, every step up was a new personal record in either elevation or latitude north. The awe of where we are and what we are doing had started to truly sink in. The once daunting fixed lines were a breeze for our well prepared and efficient team. With ease we reached the saddle. Just over 16,000 feet, the deep breaths were welcome. The thin air seemed to render nothing but gratitude. Appreciation for the raw beauty that surrounds us. Happiness for this experience we get to share together. Gratitude for each others efforts and pride in being part of this team. With the same efficiency we made it back to camp with enough afternoon to relax and watch the swarms of climbers conga line up and down the fixed lines. We reflected on the simplicity of life up here, the simple joys and the few frustrations and just how lucky we are to be here. But maybe what we’ve been calling luck, the luck of our awesome teammates, luck of the weather, the luck of feeling good and our strength, the luck seeing the surrounding, jaw-dropping views, is actually the reward for our valiant efforts. Burns and team knows they’ve earned a rest day.

Sunday, May 31st - 8:30PM PST

Today Seth, our benevolent lead, let us sleep in for one extra hour. We woke to crisp, clear skies. Many hot beverages were served, paired with  granola bars and an air of white gas. Post “breakfast” we headed downhill to collect our cache. There were tears of joy as people were reunited with precious snacks, and for some, toilet paper. After our short adventure, we settled into the posh, ate blueberry pancakes doused in maple syrup and enjoyed the heat from the stoves. Full on cakes, we moved to our next task: fortify our walls for the incoming wind. Graham is the undisputed block building champ, and after some time in the sun our labyrinth was complete. Thankfully this included higher bathroom walls, hopefully decreasing awkward interactions at the pee hole. The rest of the day was spent training, and then greeting our friends from up high. Continuing the food trend, we finished with a green coconut curry. All in all, the day was good, and somehow, the food was even better.

- RMI guide Marge

Saturday, May 31st, 11PM PST

Burns Team Makes it to 4327 meters
We woke early to a very cold morning and started packing our things. Today was the day we would move to camp 4. After a breakfast of granola, and powdered milk for the brave, we packed our backpacks until it seemed they would bust. The sun broke the rim of the mountain as we prepared to set out. We underdressed as we expected to warm up as we climbed, it would be the theme for the day as the hot sun battled the cold wind. After we climbed each steep hill we were rewarded by another steep hill to climb. On our brakes we pondered if we would rather be a strawberry with humans thoughts or a human with strawberry thoughts. As I climbed I thought it would be nice to be a strawberry, no mountains to climb or life to worry about, just sit on the vine and enjoy the sun. I tried to have strawberry thoughts as I climbed, no fatigue or suffering, just enjoy the sun on my face turning it a nice ripe red. Finally camp 4 appeared on the horizon like Shangrala, we had made it.

- RMI Climber James

5/29 - Today’s post includes two stories, we’ll let you decide what happened with Burn’s team’s seventh day on the mountain.

Story 1:
Seth and guides woke everyone up at 1 am, seizing the weather window and decided to make the first ever RMI summit push from Camp 2. After pounding 5 shots of espresso and 2 cups of powdered milk each, in just base layers, the team sprinted up the mountain at a blistering pace, reaching the highest point in North America in just 3 hours. They celebrated by shotgunning beers at the top, and cruised back to Camp 2 in 37 minutes (Denali FKT?). Very proud of everyone’s efforts today!

Story 2:
The team woke up to some more snow and decided to rest. Life is good.

- RMI Climber Andy

Friday, 5/29 1AM PST

After topping off our batteries (personal and electronic) with a sun filled rest day at 11 camp, our team went to bed last night ready for a carry in the morning. Silence greeted us as we awoke, an unusual sound around camps on the mountain. Snow had fallen through the night and we had nearly 2 feet of dry powder to contend with. Hope for moving today was all but lost and we prepared ourselves for a leisurely day, starting with delicious bacon (and vegan bacon) filled breakfast bagels. Once we had all finally settled into our books, movies, and journals, we got the news: “Let’s go! We’re going to carry, we want to be out as soon as possible.” Everyone jumped to it, got into our crampons, and we cruised through snow showers to break through a cloud layer into blistering sun just past Windy Corner to complete our cache at ~13,600ft. Soon we were back at our camp, refueling, and hoping to make a more permanent move to 14 camp in the next few days. 

-RMI Climber Graham

Wednesday, May 27, 2026 - 9:03 pm PT

We woke up to a chilly morning with clear skies. After a couple days of carrying gear and moving camps, our lead guide Seth, called for a rest day. That called for a rest day. meant a slow morning enjoying extra coffee and english muffins and ham. Camp renovations soon followed and after building the best snow bench seen at 11 camp, we enjoyed some real rest on said bench. For five minutes until one climber said “man, I hate sitting... what else can we build!?”

We found a few other useful ways to pass the time (including some actual rest in our warm tents) but try to get a group of motivated mountaineers to do nothing on a nice weather day and that just might be harder than climbing the mountain itself.

- RMI Climber Connor

Tuesday, May 26, 2026 - 10:36 pm PT

The orange snake slithers slowly in front of me, at a mountaineers pace I follow it knowing it is going where I can find shelter, food, and water. Flexing left cheek, right cheek, then left again. We stop for a break and laugh and smile at each other as we check for signs of our faces getting too cold. Puffies on, stay warm, move your fingers and toes. Breaks over, both too short and too long as we are tired but need to move to stay warm. 

I'm following the orange serpent to wherever it takes me next.

RMI Climber Wayne

Tuesday, May 26th 11am PST

An early dinner with early bedtime made for an early morning start out of Camp 1. Our team woke up at 5 am and were headed back up ski hill by 7. We got our first glimpse of the top of Denali on our way out of camp.

In our current game of cache or carry - today was a carry day. We set out with sights set on 11 camp. We hauled sleds, did maths in our heads, and considered would you rather have constantly rotating or eternally damp socks. Our bluebird day turned cloudy, eventually giving way to snow and wind at 9500 feet.

We were happy to arrive at camp at 11,200 ft and after a quick group effort our camp was up and functioning again. We tucked ourselves in our cook tent with hot tea out of the wind and snow, and entertained alternative uses for tea bags. Now waiting for our impending delicious dinner from our amazing guides, we look forward to tomorrow and what the weather will have in store for us. I leave you with a quote I often utter as I hoist my body up this cold mountain. As a wise Mexican chihuahua once said “With my bean and my sombrero, the candy is never far away”

-RMI Climber Julia (aka Juls/Jube)
 PS - Shout out to my mom and dad, who are currently watching my dog so I can run around Alaska for 4 weeks, my family/my best friends/my girls at Pennsy following along/my child dog Coco.
 

5/24 - Our team woke up to beautiful views back down heartbreak hill which we had conquered the day before and cloudy skies up the mountain towards which we set our sights. Breakfast consisted of granola and powdered milk and as much hot coffee as we could get down before rigging our sleds and packs.

With lighter loads than day 1 we slowly made our way up ski hill, eventually reaching our cache site around 9800'. Our guides dug a large 6-foot hole and we piled in bags filled with our extra clothes, gear, and food that we will grab in a couple days for the higher mountain. The cache was then topped with the extra snow and plenty of bamboo pole flags to mark it and we headed back down with empty sleds and lighter packs. 

Cloudy skies when we arrived back at camp broke and we again had some sun. A couple of us started charging our batteries with solar panels we brought and we relaxed, snacked, and dried our gear in the greenhouses of our tents.

We just finished a delicious early dinner of hearty pan fried burritos and cookies. Tomorrow we will cache some of our extra food and used clean mountain cans (CMCs) which we’ve taken turns using after meals here at 8k feet and make our way to 11k camp.

Denali continues to loom large across our camp above us, occasionally peeking out to show off its raw majesty. While we usually can’t make out the top above the clouds, we continue to set our sights there as we make our way closer and closer, day by day.

RMI Climber Climber Treavor

P.S. Hello to all our friends, family, and coworkers following our progress!

May 23, 2026

The weather was on our side today. Broken skies and light snow in the morning gave way to sunshine as we made our first move of the trip. We left base camp and descended down to the Kahiltna carrying heavy packs and fully loaded sleds. The weight on this first day is always a rude awakening to the trip but the team took it well and soon got into a groove. After several hours of true work we arrived at the base of ski hill and set up camp. We hope to carry to 10,100' tomorrow and are happy to have the first day behind us.

RMI Guide Seth Burns & Team