Mt. McKinley: Walter & Team Training and Enjoying Time
Posted by: Mike Walter, Solveig Waterfall, Steve Gately
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Denali
Elevation: 14,000'
May 18, 2014 10:50 pm PT
Shortly after finishing dinner last night some light clouds sauntered into camp and began lightly snowing on us. Soon thereafter the winds kicked up and we had a moderately noisy nights rest with the wind sending our forecasted 6" of snow into outer space. This morning we awoke to clear cold skies and virtually no wind. Foraker stood to the Southwest with a few stacked lenticular clouds and the normal sprawl of Alaskan tundra was replaced by a sea of clouds. Today was another scheduled rest day for our team and we spent it reviewing fixed line and running belay techniques which we'll utilize on the upper mountain. We also took a short stroll across the glacier to check out a feature known as "The Edge of the World". This is the point at which the glacial plateau at which 14 camp resides on abruptly drops 6,000-7,000 ft to the Northeast Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier. The team enjoyed the exposure and enormous views of Denali's "West Rib" and Mount Hunter. We also enjoyed our first sense of scale as we had a clear view down to our first camp at 7,800 ft and could finally get a sense of how far we've come. The weather stayed great for us today despite a forecasted low pressure system said to be moving through. Tomorrow we plan to tackle the fixed lines and move a cache of gear to just over 16,000 ft which puts us in great shape to wait for a weather window and ultimately our summit bid. All in all the team is doing fantastic, moral is high and folks are excited!
Best regards from Denali
RMI Guide Steve Gately
On The Map
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Comments (1)
Steve and Team,
Great news on the weather front. The views must be spectacular!
Hope all proceeds as planned from here.
Hike well and be safe.
Dad
Posted by: Bill Gately on