Entries from Denali
May 23, 2019
Posted by: JM Gorum, JT Schmitt, Dustin Wittmier
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Denali
Elevation: 7,800'
Thursday, May 23, 2019, 6:17 PM PT
We went to sleep last night surrounded by some of the biggest, most beautiful mountains on earth. When we woke up this morning, all we could see was white. Our blue skies had been replaced by clouds and light snow. Luckily, the change in weather did nothing to slow our progress. We rolled out of our tents, packed up what seemed like a totally unreasonable amount of food and gear, and then headed uphill. We hauled our packs and sleds up to 10,000', dug a hole in the snow, and buried all of our things. In a few days time we will be back to retrieve them, and move them farther up hill. After squirreling away our gear, we boogied back down to camp. The team made excellent work of the downhill, which is always a good sing. We are all dried out and are eating burritos now. Not much else to report from the day. The view were minimal. The work was hard. The plan is to go to bed early and move our camp to 11,000' tomorrow if the weather cooperates. Either way, we are having a great time here on the Kahiltna!
RMI Guide JM Gorum
On The Map
May 23, 2019
Posted by: Steve Gately, Ben Ammon, James Bealer
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Denali
Elevation: 14,200'
Thursday, May 23, 2019 3:28 pm PT
Today the team focused on fortifying camp, finishing the snow walls that shield our tents from the wind. The
Mountain treated us to beautiful morning views above the clouds while we worked, but the weather turned snowy by afternoon. Later in the day, the team practiced using ascenders in order to be prepared for our eventual trip up the fixed lines. Weather allowing, we are hoping to put those skills into practice tomorrow, leaving a cache of summit food at 16,000 feet.
RMI Guide Steve Gately
May 23, 2019
Posted by: Mike Walter, Alan Davis, Alex Halliday
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Denali
Elevation: 14,200'
Thursday, May 23, 2019 9:31 am PT
We had a good, long day of climbing on the West Buttress yesterday, pushing all the way the
17,200' camp with our cache.
The day started early and cold as we fired up our stoves hours before the sun was on our tents. After an efficient breakfast of granola and hot drinks, we prepared for our day of climbing. Except the mountain had different plans for our early start: a lenticular cloud cap had formed, indicating high winds. Plumes of blowing snow were visible from the summit down to the top of the fixed ropes (16,200'). So we pumped the breaks, stayed warm in our tents, and watched the weather unfold. Finally the winds seemed to abate and we left camp at 10:15. We encountered good climbing conditions and perfectly cool temperatures as we ascended out of camp and then up the fixed ropes. The lower part of the West Buttress was equally enjoyable. Once we topped Washburn's Thumb, around 17,000' we were met with 15-20 mph winds. Those wind speeds are generally not that alarming for mountain climbers, but at this altitude and the cold temps of
Denali it made the climbing cold and more challenging.
Six hours after leaving camp we arrived at the 17,200' camp where we spent and hour and a half digging a cache hole, sorting gear, and breathing the rare air of altitude. The descent back to camp took us three hours, so vestibule to vestibule we had a 10 1/2 hour day--good training for summit day!
Today we are resting and I am about to fire the stoves for breakfast--this time a more leisurely affair with smoked salmon and cream cheese on toasted bagels, a true luxury at 14,200' on Denali.
The weather forecast is calling for a strong storm through the weekend. We'll watch how that develops, and hopefully get a weather window for an unmitigated bid early next week. But for now we will rest and fortify camp in anticipation of the weekend's storm.
RMI Guide Mike Walter
On The Map
May 23, 2019
Posted by: JM Gorum, JT Schmitt, Dustin Wittmier
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Denali
Elevation: 7,800'
Wednesday, May 22, 2019, 11:30 PM PT
Well, we are on the
Kahiltna Glacier. We have begun the climb! We flew on early this morning with perfect weather, a smooth ride, and amazing views of the Alaska range. After landing, we consolidated and re-organized our gear, picked up fuel from base camp, rigged our sleds, and started walking. After about five hours of travel time, we arrived at 7800 feet, our first camp on the Kahiltna. After setting up tents and building a kitchen we moved into an early dinner. We’re going to try to wake up a little on the early side tomorrow. Our plan is to carry a load up to 10,000 feet. Hopefully, with an early start, we can be back down in camp hiding from the sun during the hottest part of the day. Everyone did really well today despite the warm temps and heavy loads. We’ll check back in tomorrow afternoon.
RMI Guides
JM Gorum,
JT Schmitt and
Dustin Wittmier
On The Map
May 22, 2019
Posted by: Steve Gately, Ben Ammon, James Bealer
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Denali
Elevation: 14,200'
The team woke up to gorgeous weather and we enjoyed another lengthy breakfast of eggs, hashbrowns and bacon before heading down to 13,600ft to grab our cached gear. We spent the afternoon fortifying our camp by quarrying snow blocks to build walls around our encampment. With a little time left to spare before dinner we all walked out to an area known as
"The Edge of the World". By walking out to the edge of Genet Basin, where 14K Camp sits, you're met with 6,000ft of relief straight down to the Northeast Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier. One by one each climber is belayed out to a perch of rock that overhangs the immense exposure. Easily some of the most epic and grand photos you'll ever take in your lifetime. We're back at camp now and ready to dive into another dinner. Tomorrow the plan is to take another rest day and finish fortifying our camp ahead of some stormy weather arriving this weekend. The team is all doing great and enjoying their time here at 14,000ft.
RMI Guide Steve Gately
May 21, 2019
Posted by: Steve Gately, Ben Ammon, James Bealer
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Denali
Elevation: 14,200'
Tuesday, May 21, 2019 8:43 pm PT
The winds from the previous day had subsided overnight an we woke up to mostly clear skies. You could see the south winds hammering the pipe
West Buttress from camp. By the time we made it through breakfast, the winds dropped and we were in camp. With warmer temps forecasted and only light winds in camp we opted to try for the move. Long story short, it was windy. The kind of wind that your walking straight into for hours. The team did well taking care of hands, feet and faces. We finally found a break from the torrent at 13,600ft. A long hard day brought us to our new home here at 14,000ft. With camp finally set up, we're all looking forward to a hot drink and a big dinner. Tomorrow we'll try and back carry to 13.6k to pick up our cached gear then enjoy the afternoon off to rest and recover. That's all for now, life is good!
RMI Guide Steve Gately
May 21, 2019
Posted by: Mike Walter, Alan Davis, Alex Halliday
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Denali
Elevation: 14,200'
Monday, May 21, 2019 4:43 pm PT
We're taking another planned rest day today in order to get strong and acclimate for our forays up higher. As it turns out, the forecast for high winds came to fruition and we would not have been able to climb higher today even if we had wanted to. Instead, we had another leisurely brunch and worked on fortifying camp with more snow walls. We also practiced fixed line travel for moving above here. Steve Gately's crew (RMI
Denali 2) just rolled into camp, so we're gonna go welcome them with some water. We hope the weather will let us put a cache up high tomorrow and then return back down to our current camp at 14,200'. We'll let you know how it goes.
RMI Guide
Mike Walter & Team
On The Map
Monday, May 20, 2019 10:59 pm PT
I was up this morning early to keep a close eye on the weather in anticipation of a potential move to
14k Camp. Puffy cumulus clouds clung to the surrounding terrain features and were lapping in and out of camp like the tides at about 6AM. Our forecast was calling for an 80% chance of snow showers and increasing south winds into the evening. I opted to give the weather an extra hour to show it's true intentions. I could hear the noises of other teams rustling around, presumably preparing for their own move to 14k Camp. I've seen plenty of deceiving mornings here in the Alaska Range luring you to trust that the forecast was wrong, as if so often can be. I ultimately didn't like the look of it. The team has worked hard for five days now and a full rest day seemed appropriate before committing ourselves to the higher altitudes of the mountain. So we slept in until about 9am and made a wonderful breakfast of eggs and hashbrown burritos that lasted nearly until midday. By then the clouds had overtaken camp and it began to snow lightly. By 1pm the snow intensified and the forecasted south winds showed up early and turned camp into a whirlwind of snow that made it hard to see across camp. Wrapped snugly in our warm bags we all felt good about our decision to take an extra day. It's not always you get such confirmation of a decision well made but today we did and it felt good all the while snuggled up in our warm bags reading and snacking the afternoon away. Tomorrow's forecast looks much more promising and we'll repeat the process of waking up early, sticking our heads out the tent and making another decision. Hopefully this time we'll like what we see and we'll get to move on up! Thanks for following along everyone!
RMI Guide Steve Gately
On The Map
May 20, 2019
Posted by: Mike Walter, Alan Davis, Alex Halliday
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Denali
Elevation: 14,200'
Monday, May 20, 2019 5:40 pm PT
We slept in a little bit this morning, enjoying our first full rest day. The weather was cloudy with light snow and strong ridge top winds--perfect for a rest day!
We had an extended brunch with substantial portions of hashbrowns, bacon, egg, and cheese burritos, and plenty of coffee of course.
Other than eating and resting, our team rallied a work party this afternoon to start building walls around
our camp to protect from any potential winds.
The weather forecast calls for sunny weather with strong ridge top winds tomorrow, decreasing by Wednesday. Right now the plan is to rest again tomorrow as our bodies get used to living at high altitude. Hopefully we'll be able to make a cache up high on Wednesday.
RMI Guide Mike Walter
May 19, 2019
Posted by: Mike Walter, Alan Davis, Alex Halliday
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Denali
Elevation: 14,000'
We woke from our first day at 14,000' camp to beautifully clear skies and stunning views of the
West Buttress to our north and the rest of the Alaska Range to our south, punctuated by the other two massive peaks in the range, Mt. Hunter & Foraker.
After a modest breakfast of granola and hot drinks, we headed back down hill to retrieve our cache, just shy of Windy Corner. That trip involved just over an hour of moving, so we're enjoying lots of rest the rest of the day. Besides resting, eating, and hydrating, were doing some chores around camp, like improving our kitchen/eating tent by digging it deeper and wider and buffing out the seating.
We have a rest day planned for tomorrow. That usually means sleeping in and some form of bacon and eggs breakfast burritos for an extended brunch. We'll touch base again tomorrow.
RMI Guide Mike Walter
On The Map
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So excited for your good weather and great progress! We are all pulling for great weather going forward and successful climbing
Posted by: Ellen Smith Eaton on 5/25/2019 at 7:28 pm
Thanks for the updates! Love you Dad! Rooting for you and hoping for good weather!
Posted by: Katie Knudsen on 5/24/2019 at 8:11 pm
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