Denali West Ridge Expedition 22nd June 2010

Clients: George Atkinson and Ben Bradford

July 14th The whole team is back in Talkeetna tonight after a long night of traveling down to base camp. They had a beautiful afternoon to enjoy a bit of summer like weather, and were on their way to dinner at the local pub “The West Rib” last I heard from them. They’ll spend tonight in Talkeetna, and then come back to Anchorage tomorrow after a bit breakfast.

Welcome Home Team!

July 13th The team reunited today at Camp 3 and are getting ready to start down to basecamp. I don’t expect to hear from them again until they get to the airstrip and are looking for a ride home. They’ll be pretty busy and traveling thru the night, and mostly on the move until they hit base camp. It’s a long couple of days, but everyone is pretty motivated to get back to burgers, beers, and showers.

July 12th Jacob, Ben, and George reached the summit this afternoon ! They awoke to a beautiful day and went for the top this morning at around 10am. They are minutes from getting back to high camp right now at about 9 pm. Good job guys! They’ll descend tomorrow to meet back up with the rest of the team and all head down to base camp together. George became the youngest Brit to summit age 16.

Their persistence and patience paid off, good work guys.

July 11th It was a stormy day on Denali today with wind and snow for most of the day. Jacob called from high camp this morning and said they had 50 mph winds for much of the night last night. It can be quite challenging just to hang out up there in those conditions. The rest of the team sat out the storm at Camp 3 today. Nobody moved anywhere on the mountain today, everyone is just waiting out the weather.

July 10th First the report on yesterdays summit day. Jacob summitted with Gabriel and Pierre yesterday evening. It was quite windy and cold in the early part of the day, so Sean turned around with the rest of the team. It was a pretty marginal day in the morning due to the high winds, and frostbite can be a real problem in those conditions. Jacob went up with the 2 climbers who were staying warm and feeling good yesterday.

This afternoon Sean went down to Camp 3 at 14,200 ft with Gabriel, Pierre, Alastair, KC, and Alex while Jacob is waiting another day at high camp with Ben and George to see if they can get another shot at the summit. Sean and the crew at Camp 3 will wait there for the rest of the team to descend so they can travel down to base camp together. High camp can be a tough place to hang out for very long, particularly if the weather is bad. They are hoping to get another shot at going for the summit, but this morning it was windy, and snowed for most of the day today.

July 9th It was a beautiful sunny day in the Alaska Range today and part of the team was able to go for the summit. It’s hard to move up to high camp and summit the following day without a recovery day, but several of the team members went today with Jacob and had a beautiful summit at about 7:30 this evening. It turned into a spectacular day after a cold and windy start.

I know that everyone is curious who reached the top and who didn’t, but we got cut off before I got all of the details and haven’t heard back yet. I hope to get an update tomorrow, but I’m sure they are all tired and settling into bed by now. Sometimes checking in with the office isn’t the most important thing to do at high camp. They are all back in camp now, so everyone is tucked in for the night now.

I’ll post the names of the climbers who went to the summit as soon as I hear, but the plan is for the rest of the team to go for the top tomorrow.

July 8th The team slept in and relaxed, as much as they can at over 17,000 ft, today. They are doing great and will be ready to go as soon as tomorrow. They are now waiting at high camp with another one of our Mountain Trip teams, hoping for a nice day to go for the top. It’s been quite windy for the last 2 days on the upper mountain, so they’ll need that to change before they get a summit shot. Everyone is doing great, feeling a bit rested, and ready to go as soon as they get a chance.

July 7th They moved up to high camp today. It’s one of the harder days of the trip and everybody did great. Jacob said it was one of the most beautiful days he’s had on the ridge going up to camp. The views are pretty incredible up there. They had a welcoming party at camp, another of our teams was in camp and helped them get tents up and settled in. It can be a huge help to get a few tents up as most climbers get to high camp pretty exhausted. They’ll plan to take an acclimitization/recovery day tomorrow, and then hope to get a chance to go to the summit!

July 6th The team called this evening and said it was the nicest day they have seen yet on the trip. It’s been a bit of a rough weather spell, but it looks like a high pressure is building, which should mean sunshine on Denali. They had a rest day today, and hope to be able to move up to high camp at 17,200 ft tomorrow.

July 5th It was a stormy day on Denali today and nobody was climbing above Camp 3. It is a bit of a social affair now with 3 Mountain Trip groups all hanging out together and very few others on the mountain now. It sounds like they’ve caught up on sleep and food now, and are getting excited to start climbing again.

July 4th They had a holiday today and took a day off to celebrate Independence Day! It was a bit of a snowy, cloudy day up on Denali today, so not a bad day to relax and recover. There are 3 Mountain Trip groups up at 14,200 ft camp now, and I’m sure it’s a bit of a party tonight.

Happy 4th of July!

July 4th They moved up to Camp 3 today! Everyone is doing really well so far and they are cruising up the mountain. They’ll take a well deserved rest day tomorrow (4th of July).

July 3rd The team took a rest day today to recover and acclimitize before moving up to Camp 3. These days of acclimating are important when going to high altitude, and can be pretty relaxing and enjoyable at times. They’ll plan to try to move to Camp 3 tomorrow! The team is doing great.

July 2nd Sorry for the delay in posting info for this climb, I had some technical difficulties on this end. They are all doing great and are at Camp 2 at 11,000 ft now.

They flew in on Monday as scheduled and left for Camp 1 early that next morning. They were in camp 1 before the sun really warmed things up for the day, and got a good nap that afternoon before waking up for dinner.

On Wednesday they got up pretty early again and moved up to 9,800 ft which we call camp 1 1/2. It’s a camp we sometimes like to use in between the standard Camp 1 and Camp 2.

Today they moved up to the normal Camp 2 at 11,000 ft.

June 29th Welcome to the dispatch blog for Mountain Trip’s June 27, 2010 West Buttress of Denali Expedition. Our climbers flew to the glacier last night and are headed up to Camp 1 at about 7,800 feet today.

The team met in Anchorage on Sunday, June 27 and had a team meeting and thorough equipment check with our guides, Joe Butler and Jared Vilhauer. They made the rounds to the local gear shops, picking up last minute items and upgrading a thing or two before settling in at the very cozy Earth Bed and Breakfast for the night.

Yesterday morning they loaded up in one of our Mountain Trip vans and packed a trailer full of bulging backpacks and dense duffels for the 2.5 hour drive north to the village of Talkeetna, where they registered with the National Park Service and participated in a brief orientation that all Denali climbers are required to sit through. The marginal weather then cooperated and they loaded up in a couple of single engine Otter aircraft and flew the 35 minute flight into Base Camp on the Southeast Fork of the Kahiltna glacier!

Last night was a bustle pitching tents and readying sleds for today’s five mile hike to Camp 1, so I expect there will be some tired climbers who call in this evening.

Speaking of which- let’s meet the climbers!

Guides:
Joe Butler from Anchorage, AK
Jared Vilhauer from Ophir, CO

Climbers:
George Atkinson
Ben Bradford
Alexandre Carrier
Alastair Burns
Gabriel Viti
Pierre Deroi
KC Agrelius

We have a lot of fun with these dispatch blogs and hope you enjoy them as well. Please keep in mind that we will post as soon as possible after we hear from the team, but due to time zones, changes in daily on-mountain schedules, etc, we might not post until the following morning. Also, please heed the age-old axiom of “No News Is Good News!” For some reason we always hear when something unexpected happens on the mountain, but occasionally the team is just busy making dinner and dealing with the chores at hand, and does not make the evening call to our office. Also, there are some places on the route where high ridge lines prevent the team from good satellite phone connections, and making daily calls can be challenging.