This is the RMI seminar, the Alaska seminar checking in. We awoke to another cloudless morning in Talkeetna. After eating breakfast at the Road House, we flew into base camp and were quickly boot packing a trail to our camp. After two hours of setting up camp, several helicopters passed through the southeast fork in the valley of the Kahiltna Glacier. As we continue to set up our camp and move in, the weather could not have been better. We spent a lot of time outside of our tents taking in the beautiful scenery. Everyone's doing great and excited to be here up on the Kahiltna Glacier up in Alaska. We'll check in tomorrow and hopefully have some good weather, more training. Take care.
RMI Guide Jason Thompson
Everyone did well on our first night sleeping above 14,000'. We spent the bulk of the day working around camp, building snow walls for protection from the wind, and digging out our kitchen. We also hiked back down to retrieve our cache at 13,600'.
Tomorrow we will rest and prepare for taking a cache of food and fuel to high camp. The weather forecast is calling for warmer temperatures, and we're all looking forward to that.
RMI Guide Mike Walter
Greetings from beautiful Kahiltna Base Camp! Despite breezy conditions this morning the guys at K2 Aviation were able to get us on the glacier later this morning. We spent the rest of the afternoon setting up a simple camp and getting everything ready to head out on the route early tomorrow morning. The views on the flight in were spectacular as always but this time especially so because there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The team has been hanging out and soaking in the immensity of our new environs. We'll check in tomorrow from our next camp around 7,800' or so.
Ciao for now,
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
Hello everyone!
Billy here checking in for the rest of the crew after the first official day of our Denali expedition. Today's theme: attention to detail. Lots of packing- group gear, food, hardware, clothing systems, etc. etc. After a great orientation with the park service this afternoon the team tied up all the loose ends and we are officially ready to rock and roll. Tomorrow morning we are hoping to fly in to Kahiltna Base earlier rather later but that is contingent upon the winds. The weather should be clear but possibly a bit breezy. Regardless, the pilots at K2 seem optimistic about getting onto the mountain tomorrow.
Wish us luck!
Mike would also like to make a shout out to his grandfather. He's thinking of you.
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
This is Ed and Seth checking in from 14,200 feet on Denali. Today we dropped 750 vertical feet back down the route to pick up our cache of food and fuel. It took us an hour and a half round trip. The weather has been great all day. We are now well positioned to begin climbing on the upper mountain.
RMI Guides Ed Viesturs and Seth Waterfall
We woke this morning to very cold temperatures and gusty winds, but clear skies at Camp 3. After breakfast we packed up the tents and headed out; the wind had quit and the weather was beautiful as we headed up Motorcycle Hill and then Squirrel Hill. It even got hot as we climbed toward Windy Corner.
We are now in our new home, Camp 4 (14,200'). We will go back to Windy Corner tomorrow to retrieve the cache of gear we left there 2 days ago. Everyone climbed well and we're cozy in our sleeping bags trying to get used to this new altitude.
My fingers are cold as I type this, so that's it for now. I'll be in touch again tomorrow.
RMI Guide Mike Walter
Ed Viesturs and I, along with the team, pulled into the 14,000 foot camp today! We spent 5.5 hours climbing. It was a great show of strength for our group. We started out in questionable weather but after two hours of climbing the clouds lifted and we were able to round Windy Corner in sunshine. We then spent a few hours building camp. Its necessary to build snow walls at the upper camps here to prevent the tents from being crushed by the wind. We're all settled in now for the evening.
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall
Our crew is resting today at Camp 3 (11,200'). We were tempted to move up to Camp 4 (14,200') today but the weather was a little squirrely this morning. Our team is strong, and climbing very well, but I decided that we would all benefit from rest and more time at 11,200' before pushing camp up to 14,200'. We're all eager to move up higher, and we're hopeful that tomorrow will be the day.
Hopefully next time I update our progress it will be from Camp 4. May the weather gods cooperate!
RMI Guide Mike Walter
This is Seth checking in from 11,200 feet on Denali. Today we completed our carry to 13,500 ft. The weather was spectacular when we awoke and our climbers were psyched to get higher up on the mountain. Everyone put in a good effort and we made great time. The forecast looks good for tomorrow with a deteriorating trend starting on Wednesday. So our plan is to move to 14k tomorrow and wait out the weather there. That's all for now.
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall
Our team is back at camp now, after a successful day. We cached food and fuel at ~13,700', got some great views of the upper mountain, and stretched the legs on our climb today. Now we are in position to move to Camp 4 (14,200') when the time is right. Everyone is doing well and the team climbed strong today.
RMI Guide Mike Walter
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Hi McKinley, Now you know how you got your name! Keep a smile on your face. Love, Dad
Posted by: Max on 5/13/2011 at 6:26 pm
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