Entries from Mt. McKinley
Another beautiful and successful day. We woke this morning to sunny skies and a cool, fresh breeze blowing. We put away breakfast and coffee, and then packed camp. The first stretch up ski hill is a steady, consistent grind, and in many ways we were happy for the breeze. Several other teams were moving around us as well, so we were trading leads with a handful of them. One of the great parts of climbing
McKinley is meeting other climbers from all over the world. The camaraderie of the mountains is pretty special.
Once we reached our camp, we spent several hours setting up tents and building some burly snow walls. We aren't sure if the winds will ramp up as forecast, but we'll be ready if they do. We are going to play tomorrow by ear, but for now everyone is settled into tents with full bellies.
RMI Guides Pete Van Deventer, Robby Young, Josh Maggard
We woke this morning to pretty robust winds at our 14,000' camp. After breakfast and hot drinks we headed back down to retrieve the cache we left a few days ago at
Windy Corner (13,700'). The winds subsided and we had a busy day between the back-carry, building stout walls for our camp, and digging out a kitchen tent. Everyone worked hard today and is doing well with the altitude.
The weather forecast is calling for some pretty strong winds for tomorrow, so we're just planning on resting until conditions improve and we can put a cache in up high. Hopefully the winds will subside sooner rather than later.
That's it for now. We'll check in again tomorrow.
RMI Guide
Mike Walter and Team
Hi all,
Today started on the early side and ended late, but we got so much accomplished today. We started with a last hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, potatoes, and toast with plenty of coffee, before heading to the
H2 hangar to catch the first flight off the runway. The flight into
Kahiltna Base Camp is always stunning, and today was no exception. The turn over the West Ridge of Mt. Hunter brought Base Camp into view, and we banked for the runway.
With all of our team on the glacier, we started preparing everything to walk. We weren't sure the surface conditions would be firm enough by midday, but we prepared nonetheless. We rigged sleds, packed duffels and packs, sorted group gear, and at last decided it was time. Some thin, high clouds had moved in, helping to keep the heat from making things too sloppy, so we decided to go for it. We descended Heartbreak Hill, and made the turn up the main Kahiltna, walking to 7,800 feet, at the base of
Ski Hill. Here we spent the evening setting our first camp.
Tomorrow the plan is to move with all of our gear to 9600'. There is word of some weather coming in, so we'll see how that impacts our plan, but we are psyched to have made our first moves towards the mountain. All for now, we'll be in touch tomorrow.
RMI Guide Pete Van Deventer
On The Map
It's a bit colder up here at
14,000' than it was at 11K Camp this morning, but we are all excited to be moving uphill again and enjoying new surroundings. We left a an hour earlier than our usual time in anticipation of the extensive work of building a solid camp once we arrived at our destination.
It took us just over five hours to get here, and as is normal this time of the season, there were no established camps that had been vacated and available for us to move into. Everyone fueled up and we spent the next four and a half hours building tent platforms and cutting and stacking blocks of snow to build walls and protect us from the wind.
It's been breezy and snowing on and off throughout the day, and after a quick dinner of potatoes, gravy, and Hormel Retorts, we have all jumped into the warmth and shelter of our nylon chateaus. Tomorrow we plan to return to our cache at Windy Corner and retrieve our additional food, gas, and personal snacks. Everyone is excited about this!
All the best from
RMI Guides Solveig, Mike, Steve and the team here at 14K!
On The Map
Hi all! The skies are clear, winds calm, and it's a great day to fly to
Kahiltna Base Camp. Our team is heading in first thing this morning to start moving towards our objective! We'll check in this evening from the glacier with more news of the day. All the best, and we'll keep you updated on our progress over the upcoming weeks.
RMI Guides Pete Van Deventer, Robby Young, Josh Maggard and team
Our team is still at the 11k Camp, as winds picked up around midnight last night and continued through this morning. We decided that the winds were too high for our liking, and we took another rest day here at 11k. The winds abated this afternoon and we're optimistic we'll be able to move to the
14k Camp tomorrow. In the mean time, we enjoyed a relaxing day around camp. Extra rest days like these are beneficial for acclimatization and getting strong for the hard work ahead of us.
Everyone is doing well, and we're all looking forward to moving camp up higher. We'll keep you posted as always.
RMI Guide Mike Walter
On The Map
Today we saw the first real clouds of the trip, accompanied by a dusting of snow. The clouds cleared out in the afternoon and it turned into a beautiful, but breezy evening.
We weren't terribly concerned with what the weather did today, as we took a complete rest day in order to have more time to acclimate to the altitude and recover from the past five days of hard work in the mountains.
Everyone is doing well and, if the weather lets us, we'll move up to the
14,200' Camp in Genet Basin tomorrow. The weather forecast for tomorrow is calling for clear skies and moderate winds, so we'll just have to see how things play out.
We'll keep you posted with our progress.
Caio for now,
RMI Guide Mike Walter
On The Map
Greetings from Talkeetna!
So we made it off the glacier just in time! This morning we woke at 3:30 am to start the 5.5-mile walk back to basecamp. The forecasted storm was slowly creeping in from the southwest and as we walked down glacier in the twilight, clouds came spilling over Mt. Foraker, threatening to shut down visibility. At 11:30 we could hear the mosquito hum of K2's Otter as Randy flew in just below the cloud ceiling and set the plane down on the runway. Forty-five minutes later we were in sandals and t-shirts in downtown Talkeetna enjoying the warm air and flowering fauna. It has been an excellent experience for our folks. As we dry our gear on the lawn, everyone is quietly reflecting on the last six days spent in the
Alaska range.
RMI Guide Leon Davis
Today we awoke yet again to a beautiful morning, but tomorrow that changes. With a brief disturbance blowing in from the Bering Sea tomorrow we took advantage of the good weather to make a carry to 13,500ft. There we cached gear and food that we will later retrieve and haul to
14,000ft Camp. Everyone was excited to finally strap the spikes on and go climbing and the team did fantastic navigating the new terrain and altitude. With the sun out and clear skies we enjoyed warm temperatures and fantastic views of the
West Buttress proper and major features such as the Messner and Japanese couloirs. Tomorrow the team will enjoy their first rest day of the trip as we wait out the weather. All the best from Denali!
RMI Guide Steve Gately
On The Map
Hi everyone!
Well today we went for Kahiltna Dome and we got higher than any other
RMI seminar in recent history. Soft snow and punchy crevasse bridges put a halt on our upward progress close to 11,000 feet. Despite the early start, temperatures never allowed the snow to freeze solid enough to prevent us from dropping into the many cracks that guard the ridge. The guides put the question to our
seminar participants about whether it was safe to continue and the entire team made some very rational common sense arguments on the decision to turn back. We do believe these folks are starting to understand their limits while making good decisions, as we hoped this seminar would help impart!
We are safe and happy back at 8700' camp hoping to fly off tomorrow if the forecasted snow does not interfere.
Good night and see you all soon!
RMI Guides
Leon Davis and
Eric Frank
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Looks amazing - good luck to the whole team (from Marko’s coolest sister)!
Posted by: Tatiana on 5/19/2014 at 6:01 am
Glad to hear everything is going well. Good luck to the team. Robert take care.
Love, Lisa, Joe, and Gabe
Posted by: Lisa Hohn on 5/17/2014 at 11:47 am
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