Entries from Mt. McKinley
Good evening friends & family,
The team is here at 8,800' camp on the Kahiltna, 5.5 miles from base camp. Today we walked with a few days of food and fuel up glacier under clear skies and later a blazing sun. It seems to be unseasonably warm here for early May, but we can hardly complain about great weather!
Early tomorrow morning we will leave camp and make an attempt on
Kahiltna Dome and we are all excited to see what the mighty Kahiltna looks like from 12,200'!
Until tomorrow, good night from us all.
RMI Guides
Leon Davis and
Eric Frank
Once again the weather has been nothing less than spectacular for us up here on
Denali. After a breakfast of smoked salmon, cream cheese, and bagels to start the day, we headed back downhill to retrieve our cache of gear at 9,500'. We arrived back at the 11k camp a few minutes after 2pm, with plenty of time to rest in the afternoon. As well as resting, eating, and drinking, we had a couple of chores to accomplish, namely building snow walls to fortify our camp and sorting our gear to cache up higher, which we anticipate doing tomorrow. The weather forecast looks good for tomorrow, so if it verifies we'll take advantage and get a cache in up high, likely at Windy Corner, around 13,500'.
All of us on the first
RMI Denali expedition would like to wish a very happy Mother's Day to all of the mothers in our lives.
Thanks for keeping track of our progress. We'll keep you posted with updates as we continue this awesome adventure.
RMI Guide Mike Walter
On The Map
May 10, 10:50 pm PT
Well, the weather continues to treat us well up here on the Kahiltna Glacier. We moved from
Camp 2 to Camp 3 (11,200') in beautiful, sunny weather; a light breeze kept us from over heating as we climbed up towards Kahiltna Pass. Once at camp we spent a few hours digging in and establishing a comfortable living situation. A well-earned dinner of quesadillas with fresh vegetables filled our stomachs before we crawled into our sleeping bags for the evening.
The weather forecast remains good, and tomorrow we will go down to 9500' to make a "back carry" and retrieve the extra equipment we left there in order to make our loads more manageable for the journey to camp 3. We'll be in touch again tomorrow.
Cheers,
RMI Guide Mike Walter
On The Map
May 10, 2014 10:37 pm PT
The good weather persists in the
Alaska Range! We were fortunate to spend a big chunk of time today training under clear skies and bright rays. By the end of the afternoon, everyone was dialed on crevasse rescue and amped to move camp up the glacier tomorrow. Aside from our attempt in Radio Tower most of our time so far has been focused on training and lectures on mountain related topics. Now it is time to put our training into action and see if the mountains let us get a summit.
RMI Guides Leon Davis & Eric Frank
It's another splitter evening on the
Kahiltna Glacier. Our team worked hard this afternoon and it all paid off when we rolled into camp here at 9400' and enjoyed a few hours basking in the sunshine and casually building camp. Our group is becoming skilled in campsite construction, and we are sitting quite comfortably here in our massive snow fort. With Ski Hill out of the way and in the past, we are all looking forward to our move to 11,000' tomorrow.
The team is doing well, spirits are high, the weather forecast looks promising, and we are all excited about the progress we've made and the climbing still ahead!
RMI Guide
Mike Walter & Team
On The Map
We can't complain about the two days of bad weather that prevented us from flying on when it is this beautiful at base camp. The weather here is stellar and watching the sun track across the greater Alaska range has the team in awe. Distant Avalanches off Mt. Hunter and Foraker provide awesome viewing in between skills training. Today we traveled up the SE fork of the Kahiltna for an attempt on
Horiskey's Hump (Radio Tower) but poor slope conditions turned us back. Not as much snow sticking to the slopes here this year and firm conditions on steep terrain forced us to make a conservative decision. The team is very thankful for the chance and they learned a great deal about themselves.
Tomorrow we train and prepare for an attempt on Kahiltna Dome!
RMI Guide
Leon Davis and Team
Good morning everyone!
It's a beautiful day here on the lower
Kahiltna Glacier. Our team did an excellent job of moving to 7,800' at the base of Ski Hill yesterday. We got an early flight to base camp and spent a few hours getting organized and reviewing glacier travel techniques.
After a solid 8 hours in the sleeping bags we are again packing and looking uphill in the direction of 9,500'.
We'll be sure to check in after our move today!
RMI Guide Mike Walter
On The Map
May 8, 2014 10:20 p.m. PST
The team took advantage of bluebird weather today by training on various mountaineering techniques near
Kahiltna Base. We did this in anticipation of an attempt on the Radio Control Tower tomorrow. Now that the group has all of the necessary skills under their belt, we can safely travel up the glacier and, hopefully, climb to our first summit!
RMI Guide Leon Davis
May 8, 2014 1:54 a.m. PST
The team woke this morning to the sounds of birds chirping in the trees, which meant that yesterday's rain had passed. The sky was still overcast, but as we assembled for breakfast at the Talkeetna Roadhouse spirits were high and conversation about our chances of flying onto the glacier carried a positive tone.
By late afternoon, it looked like another night might find us sleeping in Talkeetna and dreaming of
glaciers, but luck fell our way. We were instructed to "suit up" and get loaded on the plane. Our flight service,
K2 Aviation, was going to put us in the air and see if they could punch through.
Six hours later, we were nestled into our camp on the southeast flow of the Kahiltna Glacier. We established a camp and had a phenomenal dinner. Everyone is in awe of the surroundings and the group's cameras are getting quite the workout.
RMI Guides
Eric Frank,
Leon Davis and the Alaska Mountaineering Seminar crew
On The Map
The 2014
RMI Expeditions Denali climbing season is officially underway. Our team spent yesterday in the town of Talkeetna readying our gear for flying on to the Kahiltna Glacier. An expedition of this magnitude necessitates a good deal of preparation, and while our planning and preparation has gone on for months now, we still had a lot of work to do.
The day started off with a team breakfast at the Talkeetna Roadhouse before heading over to the National Park Service for our pre-trip orientation meeting. Then it was over to K2 Aviation's hangar to get our equipment ready for our glacier landing. This involved finalizing the packing of our personal kits as well as combing over the group gear, setting up tents, firing up stoves, and generally assuring that everything was in top working condition before loading it into the airplane.
The weather is forecast to be very good for flying, and expect to be on the Kahiltna Glacier by midday on Thursday. Hopefully that's the case and our next dispatch will be from the Alaska Range. We'll do our best to keep you up to date with the latest.
RMI Guide Mike Walter
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Hi Deepak and team,
I’m glad to hear that the weather has been good. Sounds like you’ve been eating well, too.
Have fun, and make some music on the mountain!
Laura
Posted by: Laura on 5/12/2014 at 10:25 pm
Steve and team,
Glad to hear that all is going as planned. When the weather is great on the mountain life is great!
Hike well and be safe.
Dad
Posted by: Bill Gately on 5/12/2014 at 5:00 am
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