Lead Guide Steven Van Sickle called in from Base Camp on the Southeast Fork of the Kahiltna. The team is officially on the glacier!

This morning, they departed Anchorage early, driving about two hours north to the (literal) end-of-the-road town of Talkeetna, Alaska. Talkeetna is often known a a small drinking town with a climbing problem, and it is a bustling place during the Denali season, with climbers from around the world preparing to fly into the Alaska Range or shuffling sunburnt and dogged after their expeditions.

The team attended an orientation provided by the amazing climbing rangers of the National Park Service and then weighed and organized their pile of food and supplies that was loaded into fixed wing aircraft flown by our partners at Talkeetna Air Taxi. The planes then took off from the tarmac in Talkeetna on wheels, flew 30 minutes into the rugged Alaska Range, and landed on skis, sliding uphill on the SE Fork to deliver the climbers to Base Camp.

The plan is to depart early tomorrow morning and move about five miles up glacier to Camp 1.

Here’s Steven!

recording