This afternoon, the seven members of our May 22 West Buttress team flew to the Kahiltna Glacier to start their ascent up the iconic route on Denali, the highest peak in North America.  They got lucky with the weather, as our May 18th team just flew onto the glacier yesterday, after getting to spend a number of rainy days in the small hamlet of Talkeetna, Alaska!

The team members include:

• Martin Birkman of Germany
• Chris Hill of California, USA
• Micheal Beuerlein of Georgia, USA
• Anne Hermanrud of Norway
• Craig Dunderdale of the UK

Our guides for this expedition are:

• Dan Starr of Girdwood, Alaska
• Brian Kramp of Girdwood, Alaska
• Kristin Arnold of McCarthy, Alaska

The team had a pre-trip briefing and equipment check in Anchorage yesterday, and then hit the local equipment shops for last minute purchases.  This morning, they were picked up by Mountain Trip staff and drove the two-hour drive north to the small, end of the road (literally!) town of Talkeetna.  All Denali climbers must attend an orientation provided by the National Park Service, and afterwards, they headed over to our friends at Talkeetna Air Taxi.

Apparently, they stopped for additional provisions as well!Well supplied, they then boarded the plane and flew to the Southeast Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier, the site of Denali’s Base Camp.

We will post updates on a semi-daily basis, when the team members call in to our dispatch site.  Often, we’ll post reports in the form of audio posts, which allows the climbers to relate their experiences in their own words, which can be fun.  Please follow their progress, but we like to stress that, “No News is Good News” when it comes to dispatches from the field.  The guides and climbers have a lot of work to do each day, and sometimes, they are just too pooped to call in an update, or the weather and/or terrain interferes with the satellite phone signal.

Please post comments!  We cannot pass them along to the team in anything close to real time, but climbers love reading your thoughts and good wishes after they come off the mountain.  If you need to reach a team member with a message, drop us a line and we’ll pass it long.

Enjoy!