Mountain Trip guide Jason Denley called in an update for the May 29 Denali West Buttress team, who were relaxing at camp at 14,200′ after a long day in the sun. They have made steady progress up the route without being hindered by the bad weather that stopped earlier teams in their tracks at one camp or another for days (or even weeks) on end.

The team ascended the steep sections of fixed lines above camp, gaining about 2,000 vertical feet to bury their final cache at 16,200′, below High Camp. Now that their cache is in place and they have spent some time acclimatizing above 14,000′, the team will likely make the move up to High Camp within the next couple of days, weather permitting.

The cache day took upwards of six hours and provided the team with good practice moving together in higher-consequence terrain and allowing them to have a better idea of the sections of the route that remain between them and the summit of the Great One at 20,310′.

Here’s Jason with the quick update: