Here is our final dispatch for the May 16 West Buttress trip! We are all either back in Anchorage, or have headed home. We have been sitting around reflecting on our last three weeks, and we all agreed that this was the most cohesive group of climbers with whom we have had the pleasure of…
The rest of the team finished the call from Base Camp, and Jason, Nungshi, Tashi and Caroline left nice messages for their friends and family. Supporting your climbers is very important, and thinking of you all is often the extra energy that climbers need to take that one… more.. step. Here is the team! recording
Yoshiko called in from Base Camp, after a quick hike down the Kahiltna. They are due to fly off the glacier shortly, but wanted to make a last call from the glacier. Jason got cut off prior to leaving his message, so stay tuned for Part 2! recording
Lead guide Yoshiko Miyazaki-Back called in from the team’s Camp 1, down in the relatively thick air of 7,800′ on the main body of the Kahiltna Glacier. The team descended almost 10,000′ today, stopping for breaks at both the 14,200′ and 11,200′ camps. They had left caches of supplies as well as their garbage at…
The entire May 16 team is on the summit of Denali!!! They had a great day and reached the top of North America!!! Congratulations to Ray, Tashi, Nungshi, Jason, Caroline, Rob, Alan, Brian and Yoshiko! Here is the call from the summit: recording
Yoshiko called this morning to report that the May 16th Team is headed to the summit! The team worked through cold and windy conditions yesterday to move from 14 Camp to High Camp at 17,200, but they still made good time—about 7 hours.They arrived at High Camp in the late afternoon, set up camp, and…
Lead Guide Yoshiko Miyazaki-Back called in to report that the team has a cache of supplies in place on the ridge above their 14,200′ camp, are well rested, and are ready to push to high camp in the morning. The forecast looks favorable for a Wednesday summit attempt, and they are prepping themselves for the…
Alan Rousseau called in from the team’s home for the past week to tell us that the team pushed their supply cache high on the ridge that leads to high camp today. They donned crampons and scaled the steepest part of the West Buttress route, utilizing a couple hundred meters of rope that is affixed…
They team is still hanging tight in camp at 14,000ft waiting out this long stretch of wind and snowy weather. They spent the day practicing some mountaineering skills on a steeper hill just out of camp. They practiced using the rope in running belays, and passing anchors, which are skills that they’ll put to…
It’s been a pretty long stretch of wind and snow in the Alaska Range for the last days, and it is expected to continue through most of the weekend. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, as the snow is expected to taper off and winds die down by late Sunday and…