Howdy and big welcome to our June 2 West Buttress team, kicking off the start of another month on Denali! We are thrilled to join the team on Denali and work alongside them as they toil up the frozen slopes of The Great One. This team will join many others as they climb Denali via the…
The team has arrived at Camp 3 at 14,200′ (4328m)! Getting to this point is always pretty exciting. There are typically a lot of teams congregated here as they wait to move to High Camp and put in their summit bid. It’s always a great opportunity to meet people from all over. Now the team…
The team is really making the best of having skis up on Denali! They climbed up the Rescue Gully, one of those couloirs or chutes I was describing, to High Camp at 17,200′ (5242m) and then skied 3,000′ (914m) back down to Camp 3 at 14,200′ (4328m). Sounds like a lot of fun, and I…
Kathryn updates us from Camp 3 last night. The team took a well deserved and no doubt much needed rest day. Rest days at Camp 3 can sometimes include walking to the Edge of The World as pictured below. Or skills practice including using ascenders and running belays with ice pickets. The team is probably…
One of our guide’s, David Lapidus, called in last night. The team left Camp 2 at 11,200′ (3413m) early yesterday morning to descend not too far to their cache site at 10,200′ (3108m). They dug up their first cache of the expedition, packed it up, and ascended the 1,000′ back to Camp 2. We call these…
One of our guides, Kyle Horner, called in last night. The team was able to put in a cache at 10,200′ (3108m), a little over halfway to Camp 2. Caching is an expedition style of climbing that allows teams to lighten their packs as well as acclimatize to the altitude. The team choses food, fuel, and…
The ski team did some skiing above Camp 3 today. There are several “couloirs” (think rock chutes) coming off of the summit ridge that drop several thousand feet down to Camp 3. The apron (lower reaches of the run, where the rock chute opens up into a basin) of these couloirs often offers some good…
The team left Camp 2 at 11,200′ (3413m) yesterday mid morning to descend not to far to their cache site at 10,200′ (3108m). They dug up their first cache of the expedition, packed it up, and ascended the 1,000′ back to Camp 2. We call these “active rest days”. They are much easier days than…
Yesterday the team left a cache at 16,200′ (4937m). The team climbed up from Camp 3 about 1,000′ (304m) or so to the bottom of the fixed lines. This usually takes a couple hours. From here the team clipped their ascenders into the fixed lines. An ascender is a progress capture device. It allows the…
Yesterday the team packed up camp at Camp 1 (7,800′ 2377m) and lugged it all first up Ski Hill which rises about 1,200′ above Camp 1. From here the team experiences some rolling terrain back up their cache site at 10,200′ (3108m). They continue climbing past the cache site up another hill into a small…