The members of our May 28th team have had a somewhat “out of the box” few days!  The team has split up, for reasons to be explained below, but everyone is doing well and is in good spirits.  Three of the five team members have reached the summit via two separate attempts and two more are intending to go for the top today.

Here is the recap:

On Saturday, the team pushed up from the big 14,200′ camp to High Camp, located at 17,200′.  This involved climbing up the steepest part of the route, and then following an engaging and scenic ridge for another 1000′ to camp.

Sunday morning dawned clear, and the weather forecast called for high winds on Monday.  Most of the team were feeling the effects of having worked tremendously hard to get to, and establish, High camp – but one climber, Pete Whitfield, was feeling good enough to make a bid for the top.  He and lead guide Constantine Sevaris pushed up to the summit in good time on Sunday!  The remaining team members rested at High Camp and remained in radio contact throughout the day.

On Monday, our guide Fischer Hazen, who had been suffering from a probable bug, descended down to 14,200′ camp with Peter, while our guide Josh Gardner made a summit bid with Mike Hopkins and Roland Yearwood.  They reached the top Monday evening!!

Yesterday, Constantine dropped down to 14,200′ camp with Mike and Roland, joining back up with Fischer and Peter.  The remaining team members, Josh, Angus and Mark, are all still back up at High Camp, hoping for the wind to slacken, so they can make an attempt at the summit.

Yes… there have been a lot of moving parts over the past few days.  At present, three of the team are still at High Camp, joined by another Mountain Trip team, so they have plenty of reinforcements.  The remaining team members are all in the relative comfort of the bustling 14,200′ camp.  The team members are unified in wanting to wait for their teammates, so that they can all descend to Base Camp together.

Here are guides Constantine and Fischer with an audio update:

Congratulations to the three team members who have reached the summit and our fingers are crossed for the remaining climbers who are tenaciously trying to make their own summit bids!  Great work everyone!

The route from just outside High Camp to the summit of Denali.