Digging up caches
The May 17th team has officially come off the mountain! The team flew back to Talkeetna today and are all safely back in Anchorage, wrapping up an incredible expedition on Denali.
It’s hard to overstate what this team accomplished. They summited Denali, standing on the top of North America at 20,310 feet, and made the long journey safely back down to Basecamp. Along the way, they navigated weather delays, hauled heavy loads through the lower glacier, pushed through Windy Corner, worked the fixed lines, climbed the ridge, made the committing move to high camp, and reached the summit on a day that demanded everything they had. That’s a tremendous expedition by any measure, and they should be enormously proud.
Now that the team is back in Anchorage, it’s a chance to slow down, swap stories, and enjoy some of the small luxuries that climbers always look forward to after a Denali trip: hot showers, fresh food, a real bed, and the company of teammates without sleds in the way. There’s also a special kind of energy that comes with being together as a team in town after coming off a mountain like this. The shared experience, the inside jokes, the memories built over weeks on the glacier all come into a different light once everyone is back in civilization.
For now, we’re so proud of every member of the May 17th team. Congratulations to the climbers and guides on an incredible expedition. Welcome back!
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Interested in more information about conditions and happenings on Denali? Be sure to also check out the Denali National Park’s Denali Dispatches Blog where they post weekly Field Reports.
