2022 celebrates the 47th year that Mountain Trip is guiding Denali!

We are beyond thrilled to ramp up our Denali season. The first of our 18 Denali expeditions this season has arrived in Anchorage for their attempt of the West Buttress, the classic route up the mountain. Following our tradition of guiding outside the box, we have a team in June that will attempt to ski from the summit and another team that will attempt the iconic Cassin Ridge, a sweeping line that ascends 8,000 feet from the bottom of Denali’s South Face to literally a meter from the summit.

Mountain Trip had five teams in the Alaska Range in April, most of which were skiing steep lines off lower elevation peaks. Our expedition to climb the West Face of Mount Huntington found dangerous rockfall conditions in the couloir they were hoping to climb, so they pivoted to climb technical lines off the Southeast Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier.

The National Park Service posts a Denali Dispatch blog, which is a great resource for learning about conditions in the Range and keep those of us watching from afar updated on all the action. Here’s an excerpt from a post a couple days ago:

“Based on his 29 seasons of experience on Denali (holy cow!) and almost daily flights into the range the past week or so, mountaineering ranger Joe Reichert reports the Alaska Range is showing the standard early season snowpack. He hasn’t noticed anything too unusual … Base Camp is firm and walkable (‘like walking on Styrofoam’), though maybe 14 Camp snow conditions are a little bit softer than usual.”

The excitement for the season is palpable! We invite you to follow along as our teams phone in dispatches from the field and share their experiences in their own words.

Enjoy!
– The Mountain Trip Team