Entries from Mt. McKinley

Our Denali escapade has commenced! Everyone arrived in Anchorage without incident and enjoyed a surprisingly smooth drive to Talkeetna. We spent yesterday crawling through all our gear, packing, repacking, wondering if we should bring more, less, or had forgotten something entirely and tearing it all apart to start again. Once we were sure, we weighed it all in for the planes and got sorted for the two Otters that would ferry us to base camp. We enjoyed a last dinner in Talkeetna, and some took two, three, or four showers to make up for the coming weeks and be sure to fly on smelling like roses.

We woke up this morning ready and hopeful to launch immediately, but it wasn't to be. Base camp reported that they were in a snow globe with 12 new inches overnight. We commenced the chill, sipped coffee, visited the myriad shops, ate lunch, and became somewhat convinced that we would HAVE to spend another night in a bed, have to take another shower, and have to eat a meal. Then, suddenly the RMI1 team got told to ready 5 and launched. Our hopes changed - but also Came with the realization that we would be landing quite late, and cooking dinner would be even later. So, we compromised. We would sleep on the ground and forego a shower if we could have one more mountain high pizza meal. We grabbed pizzas, trapped the stack together, and flew in with them in our lap. Our flight was stunning, with the long light of evening lighting the thousands of peaks in the Alaska range. We landed, set up our shelter, ate our pizza, and are settling in for our first night on the glacier.

We will be in touch tomorrow with more news. Stay tuned!

RMI Guides Pete Van Deventer, Henry Coppolillo, Tatum Whatford, and Team

Thursday, May 11, 2023 - 11:04 AM PT

Our team is caffeinated, fed, and ready to fly into Kahiltna Basecamp this morning. The morning weather isn't quite cooperating with us just yet, as Basecamp resembles a snow globe. Forecasts indicate an improving trend, so hopefully the clouds dissipate and allow us access today. We will keep you apprised of situation. Until then, it's coffee and standby mode! 

RMI Guide Mike Walter

Thursday, May 11, 2023 - 6:33 AM PT

Yesterday was spent milling around the K2 Aviation hangar in our climbing duds, hoping for the word to load the planes. But the weather never cleared, which kept the planes grounded. The forecast keeps trending better, so we'll try again today. 

RMI Guide Mike Walter

Thursday, July 7, 2022 - 11:52 am PT

We are calling ourselves lucky.  Very lucky.  The clouds moved away long enough for the glacier surface to freeze up for our nighttime ramble down the lower Kahiltna.  We started walking down from 11,000 at 12:30 AM.  The midnight sun was beautiful on the peaks around us as we cruised down in the cool shadows.  The first hours, to the base of Ski Hill, were straightforward… then things got complicated.  Lots and lots of crevasse crossings.  But that is where the freeze helped immensely.  It also didn’t hurt that other teams preceded us, breaking into holes and showing us where not to walk.  In the end we made it through without any collapsed bridges.  It took about seven hours to get to the airstrip.  Half the team flew off in a K2 Otter just before 10 AM but before the plane could make it back for the other half, clouds rolled in.  They didn’t roll away until mid afternoon, at which point the Otter swooped in to get the job done.  We were the last team on Denali for the 2022 season… and then we were just a bunch more tourists in Talkeetna with funny tans.  The team had a celebratory dinner at Mile High Pizza Pie, and then a late night Cornhole tournament in the beer garden of the Fairview Inn.  A little live music and a nightcap (or two) put a finish on an excellent expedition.  Thanks for following. 

Best Regards
RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Photos courtesy of Dave Hahn

Tuesday, July 5, 2022 - 8:25 pm PT

We pulled out of 14,000' at 10:30 this morning.  Winds were still blowing up high, it certainly wouldn’t have been a summit day, but much of the low cloud had cleared out.  The couple of hours down around Windy Corner, across the Polo Field, down Squirrel and Motorcycle Hills were the usual insane sled rodeo.  The sleds don’t like being heavy or on a side hill and so they flip a lot and we all just try to keep smiling and pulling.  We set up camp -possibly our last- in early afternoon and dove in for naps.  We’ve just eaten dinner now and we’re napping once more.  The plan is to get up in three hours (at 10 PM) and to set off around midnight toward the airstrip on the Southeast Fork of the Kahiltna.  We’re hoping the surface of the lower glacier freezes up hard and that our timing is just right for taking advantage of that freeze.

Best Regards

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Monday, July 4, 2022 - 9:46 pm PT

We woke to a calm but cloudy morning at 17,200'.  There was light snow falling -some of the first snowflakes we’ve had on this trip.  It wasn’t too hard to be out in it for packing though.  We got it all done and got walking at noon.  Many careful steps were taken along the crest of the West Buttress in the clouds.  We got a little surprise when we started down the fixed lines at 16,200. There was an actual squall with snow blowing in our faces as we delicately stepped down and across crevasses.  Things eased as we got to 14,000' at 3 PM and re-established camp.  We then had a quiet afternoon and evening of resting, relaxing and eating, with everybody making mention of how much easier life at 14,000' was compared to 17,000'. 

Tomorrow we’ll hope the clouds go elsewhere as we get down to 11,000' and get set for the big walk out the lower glacier. 

Best Regards

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Monday, July 4, 2022 - 1:50 a.m. PDT

Briefly…Because it is 12:38 a.m. at 17,200 ft…we did it! Fabulous climb to the top of North America. The day started out a little more windy than predicted, so we pushed our start back to 10:15 a.m., by which time thinks were looking more promising. We went back and forth all day between a little cool and a little hot. Luckily, when we hit the top at 6:30 p.m., it was calm and easy.  In fact we enjoyed it so much we spent 50 minutes on top! There was only one other team today and we will likely be some of the very last for the season. Beautiful views down into all the fascinating glaciers and valleys surrounding Denali. We picked our way carefully down, leaving the summit at 7:20 p.m. and arriving back at high camp at 11:00 p.m. Late night dinner and then crawling into sleeping bags for well earned rest. 

Best Regards,

RMI Guide Dave Hahn and team

Saturday, July 2, 2022 - 8:56 pm PT

It was a rest day, although slightly less restful for taking place at 17,200'.  Everything is a little harder up here.  We were lucky to have a nice sunny day (again) which made it easier to relax.  It was breezy from time to time, which was forecast.  We’re hoping the winds quiet down, in keeping with those forecasts, for our summit day tomorrow.  We ate and drank water and stared out at the amazing views.  We made last minute adjustments to our packs and the gear we’ll rely on tomorrow.  We talked strategy.  We looked up at the “autobahn” -the route from 17,000' to Denali Pass and tried to judge its difficulty.  After weeks of hard work to get in position, we are ready. 

Best Regards

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Friday July 1, 2022  11:25pm PDT

We were repetitive today.  “What a gorgeous day” was heard over and over.  We were out of our sleeping bags and firing the stoves at 7 AM and … as usual… it was calm and clear and perfect at 14,000 ft.  A little cool in the shadows, but by the time we’d eaten breakfast and done another big gear sort, it was 9:50 and the sun was coming on strong.  We headed up the now-familiar terrain leading to the fixed ropes and the crest of Denali’s West Buttress.  The work was certainly hard, carrying big packs on steep snow, ice, and rock at high altitude, but the scenery was magnificent.  It was even more magnificent once we loaded up the supplies from our cache at 16,600 and pushed on to new ground.  It was a thrill to walk along the ridge crest, balancing between the big drop down to Genet Basin on one side and the Peters Glacier on the other.  We rolled into 17,200 ft at about 4 PM in calm and sunny conditions and began to build our high camp. 

The decision was made, over dinner in our rather compact high camp dining tent, to take a rest day tomorrow (Saturday) and to focus on a summit bid Sunday.  Conditions look good for Saturday, according to the forecast, but even better for Sunday and we’d like everybody to have their best shot at the top after so much hard work. 

Best Regards,

RMI Guide Dave Hahn & Team

Thursday, June 30, 2022 11:25 pm PDT

Another beautiful day, but this was an easy one.  We just rested and solidified our acclimatization today.  And ate and ate and ate.  It was great to see Andy’s RMI team come back into the camp at 14,000 on their way lower.  We congratulated them and wished them a safe journey out. 

In between afternoon naps, the team roped up and walked to the “Edge of the World” overlooking the Kahiltna Glacier’s NE Fork.  Camp at 14,000 is in a broad and mostly flat basin, but at the edge, there is a fairly breathtaking view straight down… seemingly for miles.  The gang enjoyed watching clouds race up the face and catching glimpses of the Cassin and West Rib climbing routes.  Back at camp we had dinner in calm sunshine and prepared for the big move up to 17,200 ft.

Best Regards

RMI Guide Dave Hahn & Team