May 7, 2015 12:39 am PT
Greetings,
Today the team spent a full day doing technical training, building foundational knowledge in hopes of breaking camp tomorrow and moving towards our next objective: Kahiltna Dome.
The weather has so far been excellent, so if you are out there reading this, do a little anti-snow dance for us!
Cheers from Alaska,
RMI Guides Leon Davis, Garrett Stevens and Bridget Belliveau
May 5, 2015 11:27 pm PT
Hi everyone.
Another beautiful sunny day on the glacier! Perfect to go out for a bit of climbing and training. We left this morning in the cold shadow of Mt. Hunter and made our way up into a small basin on the north side of Horiskey's Hump. Stopping periodically to study the glacier and identify some key features that make this frozen river so interesting. The team made great time and we were able to stand on top while getting some good practice on fixed line travel. By late afternoon the team was back at camp building a few more walls and celebrating Cinco de Mayo courtesy of John and his guacamole. Good night.
RMI Guide Leon Davis
May 4, 2015, 9:46 pm PT
Good evening friends & family! The first RMI Alaska Seminar of 2015 is on the SE fork of the Kahiltna Glacier. Our team spent today buffing out camp, which overlooks the airstrip, with snow block walls and a bathroom. We taught a clinic on climbing fundamentals, watched Mt. Hunter shed some large ice blocks and enjoyed a nice dinner of burritos in the cook tent. Tomorrow we will venture to the north side of Horiskey's Hump for some more training and climbing. Good night from a cold sunny glacier far far away.
RMI Guide Leon Davis
What a spot. Looks beautiful, some day I may be able to get the funds to do this trip as well. Keep saving and keep training. Have fun and be safe.
Thanks
Kevin Stone
Posted by: Kevin Stone on 5/6/2015 at 7:45 am
So excited to follow you all on this adventure….a dream for our son who is there with you. Be safe and enjoy every moment!
Hello from Talkeetna, Alaska! The RMI Alaska Mountaineering Seminar is underway here, and so far it's nothing but blue skies, sunshine, smiles and excitement. The team all arrived yesterday in Anchorage, and despite one delayed flight we were all able to rendezvous with our shuttle and make tracks north. A short shopping stop in Wasilla let us get all the final little treats that we'll want to eat on the glacier for the next week or so, and then we finished the drive to this quaint little town at the end of the road.
After a good night's rest, the team met this morning for breakfast at the fabled Roadhouse, followed by a stop at the ranger station to complete all our paperwork. We headed over to the hangar to finalize our packing and preparation, and then it was off to the races with training. Tent craft and now rope work, with the team learning a lot of new skills that we'll use over the course of our program.
We're scheduled to fly onto the Kahiltna Glacier this afternoon, so once we get the final weights of all our gear, we'll suit up and head into a very different world! We'll trade the trees and grass for snow and ice, but that's what we've all come to do.
Keep it tuned in for more updates, and thanks for reading!
RMI Guides Leon Davis, Garrett Stevens, Bridget Belliveau, and the expedition team
July 17, 2014 - 8:45 pm PT
In just under 24 hours, our climbing team went from the 17,200 ft high camp to the 7,200 ft basecamp. It wasn't remotely easy. Luckily, we had a calm start to the day which allowed us to balance carefully down the exposed and spectacular crest of the West Buttress. Things got tougher at the base of the fixed lines when we needed to virtually swim through bottomless powder snow. We reached easier terrain upon which one could walk laboriously in knee deep new snow and this ground got us to 14 camp. We did a fry-up of a few quesadillas while reorganizing gear and then set off in cloud toward Windy Corner. Plenty of snow kept us walking funny and breathing hard as we negotiated the side hills and corners of Squirrel Hill and then Motorcycle.
At 11 camp we threw up tents and downed dinner. The team wanted to just sleep for a few hours before resuming the march to BC at 2:30 AM. The early start would give our best chance at catching the lower glacier in a frozen (rather than slushy) state. We pushed on through the night gloom, a few thick fog banks and miles of glacier. It was great to see -as expected from conditions on the way in- that the lower Kahiltna was well put together. Very few crevasse crossings troubled us. Finally we got working, trudging and sweating up Heartbreak Hill. As we progressed, the weather improved to the point that with our arrival at the former site of Basecamp (nothing remains so late in the season) it was good enough to dial up K2 Aviation on the Sat Phone and seek a pickup. The K2 pilots did their normal exceptional job in whisking us out of winter and into the Talkeetna summer.
Day 21 of our climb will end with a victory dinner in town. True, we stopped a couple thousand feet short of the summit, but victory is still ours. It feels that good to have endured Denali together.
Best Regards and thanks for following,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
An amazing 21 days for the team and for those of us who climbed vicariously with you all the way up and back down! We do not regret missing the summit, since the climb is a great success in itself, proving who you all are, and allowing us “lowlanders” to share in your successes!
Dennis and Georgia
Posted by: Dennis and Georgia on 7/18/2014 at 10:30 am
Congrats on your safe return. It is always a good day when you live to climb another day. Now you can plan your next climb!! :o)
July 16, 2014 - 11:37 pm PT
Hey, this is Dave Hahn with the last team on Denali. We did make it out of 17,000’ today. We woke up, the weather was stable and we started working our way down. And sure enough, we found some deep snow, it was hard going, sometimes waist deep but we made it down to 14,000’ and then plowed through a bunch more new snow to get to 11,000'. We are taking a rest here at 11,000' and our hope, everybody is feeling pretty enthusiastic, about trying to get to the airstrip tomorrow morning. We are just going to rest a few hours and get on the trail again. We expect it to be a little bit easier now that we are down low and conditions will be a bit better than what we were dealing with.
All is well with us.
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
RMI Guide Dave Hahn calls from 11,000ft on Mt. McKinley, Alaska.
July 15th, 2014 - 7:16 pm PT
Yesterday's storm hit hard at 17,200 ft. The heavy snow continued through dinner and the night, with plenty of wind to make things noisy. The team took turns through the night, going out to dig snow in order to keep tents from being crushed. The hard workers would come back into the tents coated head-to-toe in rime ice. By morning, several things were clear. Significantly, the sky wasn't one of them. Our climbers were wet and cold from the rough night and our summit ambitions were now going to take a back seat to getting down the mountain safely. Even before we could see the Autobahn, we knew it couldn't receive two plus feet of snow overnight without gaining a significant avalanche risk. Sure enough, after the morning shovel session and breakfast we did get some clearing and couldn't see any evidence of our track to Denali Pass. The slope had dramatically wind sculpted snow slab from top to bottom. We won't mess with it. Winds died in the afternoon, which made it a little easier for the team to dry out and get some rest. We'll give the slopes below us a day to cook in the sun and stabilize and we'll hope the next storm pulse holds off long enough for us to get down from the ridiculously high West Buttress.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Job well done to the whole team! Wish you could have made the summit, it is much better to be safe than risk get into trouble. Have a wonderful and safe journey down. Joe and Sean, can’t wait to hear about it. Cheers to all of you!!!
Posted by: Tower on 7/16/2014 at 11:12 am
It’s been fun learning about your trek. Be safe out there. Kb, I look forward to hearing a bit more about everything.
July 14th, 2014 - 7:45 pm PT
At seven this morning, a good chunk of the sky was clear. We could see way out into the tundra to the West and there were mountains visible in the South that we were seeing for the first time on this trip. Our objective, Denali's South Peak, was in the clear and there didn't appear to be any wind blowing at Denali Pass. We geared up to climb for the summit. There was a bit of cloud to watch in the Northwest though. As we broke trail toward the base of the Autobahn (the route to Denali Pass) we watched that cloud in the NW come a little closer. We climbed some of the steeper terrain of the Autobahn while still in morning shadows. It was cold and progress was slow due to our need to re-establish the snowed over route. The clouds encroached on the North Peak. Then they formed a cap on the South Peak. We were still in relatively calm conditions, so we pushed on to about 17,900 feet, in order to give the clouds a chance to change their mind and flee. This didn't happen. The clouds became a snowstorm and so we spun around and worked carefully back to high camp. Since the storm showed no signs of abating, it seemed a good time to retrieve our emergency cache of food from 16,200 feet. A few intrepid guides accomplished that mission just in time to avoid strengthening winds on the West Buttress. We're safe in our tents now at 17,200 feet, waiting for the storm to go elsewhere before we try once again to climb Denali.
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
July 13, 2014 - 10:58 pm PT
Yesterday was a tough climb to reach high camp at 17,200 ft. Bad weather at the start of the day caused us to get on the trail later than we'd have liked and a couple inches of new snow on the route made the steep pitches a little more exhausting than they might otherwise be. Even so, with heavy packs and tired legs, we were thrilled to balance along on the crest of the West Buttress, enjoying an endless sunset of golden light. We pulled into camp at 9 PM, just as the sun got tangled in thick cloud. It was a scramble to build camp and get stoves going before the real cold took hold. We ran stoves until 2:30 AM in order to have enough water. As we worked hard to get dug in, we watched a team of two guides and one climber make a late descent of the "Autobahn". They'd managed to thread the needle and hit the summit and as they neared camp, the weather came in again with clouds and wind. Our tents stood up to a few good gusts in the night and the usual blowing snow but as tired as we were, it didn't keep us awake. Morning was calm and easy where we were but too windy and mean up above, so we finished getting our camp in order and took it easy instead of climbing. The team of three has descended now and we are left alone in our quest... Likely the highest people in North America, even as we simply sit in camp on what has become a beautiful evening. If the good weather lasts until morning, we'll know how to use it.
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
July 13, 2014 - 4:05 AM PT
Hey, this is Dave Hahn calling in from 17,000' we made it up today, a better than expected day. It didn't start out too good but we made good use of it. We left 14,000' at 1:30 in the afternoon and got up here at 17,000' at 9 PM, which was a little bit late but we managed to get all buttoned down before the storm started again. All are doing well at 17,000' and now we're ready to get lucky up here.
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
RMI Guide Dave Hahn checks in from 17 camp on Mt. McKinley.
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Snow dancing has commenced in DC!!! Fingers Crossed for you all!
Posted by: Melissa Quantock on 5/8/2015 at 7:54 am
Looks like you are enjoying beautiful weather. I will be there next week doing the same seminar. Enjoy.
Posted by: John Newland on 5/8/2015 at 6:15 am
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