Lead Guide Josh with the May 29th West Buttress Denali Expedition called in to report that team persevered through some adverse conditions to make it to Camp 2! 

As with most satellite phone calls originating from Camp 2, this one from Josh gets cut off at the end… But, we can still hear the stoke in his voice after a hard day of climbing to get to Camp 2 at 11,200′.

Here’s Josh: Audio Recording

Climbers heading up into the Camp 2 basin.

Camp 2 is located in a bowl feature with high peaks on both sides. For this reason, satellite phone connectivity can be pretty poor and we often get garbled message from the teams at Camp 2. But fear not! The teams in Camp 2 are surrounded by beautiful views, with the West Buttress looming above Motorcycle Hill and jaw-droppingly beautiful seracs to the right of camp.

After navigating the wide open stretches of the upper Kahiltna Glacier (where we sometimes experience “white-out” conditions), turning up into this basin provides climbing teams with some confines and definition in the terrain to work with. On a challenging weather day, you can be in a whiteout for the entire day until you make this turn up into the basin, and nothing feels better than seeing Camp 2 emerge out of the fog before your eyes.

Way to make the move team! We are sure that the May 29th Team is happy to be established at a new camp with a change of scenery!