Not content to climb up and down the classic West Buttress, a handful of climbers have elected to climb up and over Denali to descend the wild and remote Muldrow Glacier route to the north.  We call this our Denali Traverse climb, and we are the only guide service to run these trips year in and year out.

Denali has the highest vertical relief of any mountain on the planet, at over 18,000′.  Our Traverse team will get to experience every foot of that relief if they succeed in their mission of descending out to the north.  They will down climb from the frigid cold of the summit, through numerous icefalls, across the crevasse-ridden Muldrow and out into the tundra of central Alaska, where they will be free of the ice and snow, but lower on the food chain to mosquitos and grizzly bears.

The team flew onto the glacier on Monday, May 23rd and moved to their Camp 1 yesterday, the 24th.  I’m not certain who the attached podcast is from, as the satellite connection was a bit sketchy, so of anyone out there recognizes the voice, please let us know by posting a comment.

Our 2011 Traverse team consists of:

Gunnar Fermann
David Woodman
Aaron Hantler
Steven Novick
Chris Kerrick (lead guide)
Greg Nappi (guide)

Here is their first report from 7,800′ on the Kahiltna Glacier, about 5 miles up glacier from Base Camp:

[audio:http://mountaintripdenali2011.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/audio-post-2011-05-25-04-46-29.mp3|titles=Audio Post]