June 9, 2014 - 9:52 pm PT
The team remained at 7,800' on Mt. McKinley and chalked it up to a weather day. Apparently they spent the day composing poetry. A copy of their work is below:
We're below Ski Hill
Snowing, blowing, eating here
Hope to move up soon!
Cheers from 7800,
Katie, Leon, Jake, and Crew
RMI Guides Jake Beren, Leon Davis & Katie Bono
How about posting a group picture with the guides in front?
I want to see all you mountain climbers.
Posted by: scott's mom on 6/11/2014 at 1:11 pm
Curious about what you all do all day waiting for the snow to blow over ? Wishing you sunshine all the way to the top! Missing you Scotter Potter!
Love, mom
June 8, 2014 - 9:19 pm PT
Today was a great day for resting and that is what we did. We awoke to some clouds and snow at our camp at 7,800' and decided to hunker down. Reviewing some knots and hitches filled the spaces between naps and we are raring to go tomorrow if the weather allows. It is snowing at present and with more snow in the forecast, we'll just have to wait and see.
RMI Guide Jake Berenn
Saturday, June 7th 10:36 PM PT
Greetings from our home at 7,800' at the base of Ski Hill.
Today we carried big loads up to 9,600' camp and made a cache. This allowed us to get in some mileage and take a day off the sleds. It also gives us a lighter move day tomorrow and every little bit helps! Just before dinner it started to snow and we retreated to tents to rest up for the upcoming day. Cross your fingers for clearing skies and we'll make the most of them.
RMI Guide Jake Beren
June 6, 2014 - 11:30 pm PT
70 years ago there was a landing much different than ours in a far away land. We are grateful for those past sacrifices.
Our landing was quite pleasant, leaving Talkeetna early and spending the morning packing up to head down the the Main Fork of the Kahiltna and make that crucial right turn towards Denali. The team did well and we made camp at the base of Ski Hill under clearing skies, alpenglow of the high mountains and a just past halt moon. Nice way to start it off.
After setting up shop, the crew is hunkered down for some well earned rest and if the weather smiles on us again, we'll go higher tomorrow.
RMI Guide Jake Beren
We are all weighed for the big fight and now just relaxing a bit before taking off. Early reports from Basecamp have us in a little bit of a holding pattern due to some snowfall. The skies are currently clearing up now and we hope to be en route to the AK range soon enough. Wish us luck!
RMI Guide Jake Beren & Team
Hello Everybody,
This is the Dhaulagiri Climbing Team we are calling here from Base Camp. We have to let you know that unfortunately there was no summit for us. As we have said in recent blogs the weather has been pretty bad for us. We have had a lot of snow and we had to turn around at the very last day. We have a few member of the team at Camp 3 and had a decent chance at a summit push, but conditions were no good.
We are currently at Base Camp and will start to hike down tomorrow, and we should be back in Kathmandu in four or five days and we will try to write down details to wrap up our expedition. We have worked very hard and have been the first the first team on the mountain and the one that got the highest. It will be neat to see everybody follow in our steps all the time going up and down the mountain. Like I said, we had a ton of snow breaking trail was very difficult and we made it as high as we could. Other than that everybody is doing pretty well, and we are very satisfied with our work. Again, we were a team going unsupported and did everything on our own. Getting to where we got with day in and out snowstorms dumping up to three to four feet of snow, the work wasn’t easy. We are pretty proud of what we have done.
We want to thank everybody for their support given to us, and we hope everything is going well back home. We will touch base from Kathmandu in a few days.
Thanks Everybody! Talk to you all soon!
RMI Guide Elias deAndres Martos
The Dhaulagiri team called the RMI Office this morning to check-in. Here is a summary of our conversation:
First and foremost, everyone is healthy and in good spirits. The weather forecast is calling for more of the same—gorgeous, clear mornings followed by afternoon snowstorms. They are refusing to let the plethora of new snow dampen their spirits. A new team has arrived at base camp and everyone is enjoying the new company. The team is getting ready to head to bed for the night. In the morning they will begin heading uphill to get into position for their summit attempt.
The team sends their love to everyone following along! They will keep us posted on their upward progress.
Hello,
This is the Dhaulagiri Climbing Team and once again we wanted to apologize for the lack for the lack of communication, but as we said before we have been having a few problems with the satellite “sat” phone. But, right now we can send a dispatch.
We have been discovering the worst weather that we have ever witnessed. This Himalayan peak is pretty much keeping us working really, really hard. We are getting snow storms every day. The only time we have not had afternoon storms have been when we have all day storms! But, that hasn’t kept us from climbing. The last two days we have been working very hard being the only team on the mountain breaking trail to establish Camp 2. In the next few days we are going to be looking at the route between Camp 2 and Camp 3 which is one of the hardest parts of the climb. If that is a go we’ll have a summit bid.
Like I said, we have been receiving anywhere from a foot to two feet of snow every other afternoon and it has made our job hard. A couple of other teams have arrived, but they are not as ambitious to work up high yet. We are not going to quit until our plane leaves. We have a little bit less than 10 days here to make it happen. We have a really good weather forecast and will keep our fingers crossed that we are going to have a shot at it.
So if the sat phone keeps working for us we will keep you posted as much as we can. So please keep your fingers crossed for us. This is Dhaulagiri and we hope you all take care. We hope to communicate good news soon!
RMI Guide Elias deAndres Martos
Hello, this is the Dhaulagiri climbing team on Sunday, the 20th. First of all we want to apologize for the lack of communication, but we're having serious problems with our SAT phone and charger and we are trying to solve that problem. We are also saddened by the news that arrived to base camp here of the tragedy on Everest. We want to send our condolences to the community of the Sherpa involved in this tragedy. Our progress here on the mountain continues. We have been able to reach almost Camp 2. We have been very unlucky with the weather. Until right now we have been the only team on the mountain, but we were able to make a carry to almost Camp 2 and spend a few nights at Camp 1. Right now the weather looks like it is favorable to us and we are hoping to take a few days of rest and make some more progress up high, hopefully getting to Camp 2 or 3 in the next week or so. Getting ready for a future summit push around the beginning of May. So we'll keep you posted on that and we hope everybody is doing well. We'll try to keep you posted as much as we can with the limited communications that we have here. Regards to all from Dhaulagiri Base Camp.
RMI Guide Elias de Andres Martos
RMI Guide Elias de Andres Martos calls in from Dhaulagiri Base Camp.
Hello, this is Dhaulagiri climbing team on Saturday, April 12th. We have come back to base camp. We had made a move to Camp 1 and spent last night up there. We were forced to move down because of the bad weather. However that was pretty much the plan after moving up there and caching some gear and spend at least a night for acclimatization. We have about a foot of snow at base camp and we got about 1 1/2 feet at Camp 1 last night. Looks like the trend is going to be like that for the next couple of days and we are going to wait it out down here. We'll keep you posted on the move. So far the "mountain of storms." We will see what happens. Hope everyone is doing well and we'll check in later.
RMI Guide Elias de Andres Martos
Elias de Andres Martos calls in from Dhaulagiri Basecamp.
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How about posting a group picture with the guides in front?
I want to see all you mountain climbers.
Posted by: scott's mom on 6/11/2014 at 1:11 pm
Curious about what you all do all day waiting for the snow to blow over ? Wishing you sunshine all the way to the top! Missing you Scotter Potter!
Love, mom
Posted by: scott's mom on 6/11/2014 at 1:08 pm
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