Success!

I received a phone call at 10:30 Alaska Time from Chris, confirming that he, Noel, Kevin, Michael, Peter, Elliot, and guides Peter and Michael reached the summit yesterday!

Chris called this morning and said that they were going to descend the ridge back down to Camp 3 at 14,200'. The weather was not perfect, but Chris had reconnoitered the ridge and the team felt good about descending.

They hope to fly off the glacier for Talkeetna tomorrow.

Good luck on the descent boys!

Summit Bound!

I spoke with an NPS Ranger stationed at Camp3 this morning. He told me that the remaining members of the team are heading up to the summit today. He said the weather looked good and they should have a fine day for admiring the Alaska Range from above it all!

I'll keep you posted!

Official News of Fatal Climbing Fall

We just received an NPS Press Release. Apparently the rumor mill mixed up a couple of things, so I have pasted the release in its entirety:

Two climbers died as a result of a 1,900-foot fall during a descent of Mt.
McKinley on Thursday evening May 17. Mizuki Takahashi, a 36-year-old
woman from Lake Forest Park, Washington was pronounced dead shortly after the fall. Her partner, 27-year-old Brian Massey from North Bend, Washington remained unconscious throughout the night, but succumbed to his injuries Friday morning.

Takahashi and Massey had left the 14,200-foot camp on Tuesday morning for an ascent of the Upper West Rib route of Mt. McKinley. A third team member stayed behind at the 14,200-foot camp. At 6:30 p.m. Thursday evening, a mountaineering ranger patrol staged at the mountain’s 17,200-foot High Camp witnessed the fall, which began from an elevation just below 19,000-feet near the Messner Couloir. The roped pair fell to a point just below High Camp.

A hasty team comprised of the ranger patrol and two climbing guides traversed to the team, and confirmed that Takahashi was deceased. The rescue team performed an initial assessment of Massey, who was immediately carried back to the ranger tent for emergency medical treatment for severe injuries. Massey never regained consciousness, and he died Friday morning at 8:30 a.m.

Cloud cover and darkness prevented a medical evacuation overnight. The remains of the two climbers will be flown down to Talkeetna when flying conditions permit.

Mountain Trip Team Helps With Rescue

I just received some tragic news from another team at Camp 3. Apparently a Czech team was attempting to cross the top of the Messner Coulouir at above 18,000 feet when a small slab avalanche killed one of their members.

Heidi Kloos and Rob Durnell, our two most experienced guides on an expedition currently hunkered down at High Camp, assisted with the rescue of the remaining climbers.

Please rest assured that no one on this expedition was in any way involved with the accident. Most of the team is doing great, although I did hear that a couple climbers are not feeling well and might descend with another Mountain Trip expedition tomorrow or the next day.

Dug in at Camp 3

Chris called last night. They are taking a well-deserved rest day at Camp 3 at 14,200 feet. The going has been pretty challenging as the weather and snow conditions have conspired to really punish the team.

Yesterday they back-carried a cache up from just around Windy Corner at about 13,700 feet. This means that they dropped back down from Camp 3 and dug out their cached supplies that they had left a couple of days earlier. This was a modest work day and helped enable everyone to acclimatize further to the elevation of Camp 3.

Chris said that pushing around Windy Corner was really challenging. I suspect it was living up to its moniker. The forecast is for warming temperatures with moderate winds up high. They plan to carry loads up the fixed lines to an elevation of about 16,400 feet today and then take advantage of every weather window to push up to High Camp and then to the summit. Chris said he's only seen one viable summit day since he's been on the mountain, so they will take advantage of any opportunity to make a safe go of it.

The team is on the glacier and moving up!

The team flew to the Southeast Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier on Tuesday, after spending one rainy night in Talkeetna.

They spent one night at Base Camp (7,200') before packing up camp and moving up glacier. The ironic thing is that moving up initially means moving DOWN, as the Southeast Fork drops about 600' before it joins the Kahiltna Glacier. This hill is called "Heartbreak Hill"for its seemingly never-ending incline on the return trip back up it.

The Kahiltna Glacier is not giving up easy passage these days, as sparse new snow has made for some fairly thin snow bridges that cover some deep crevasses. We've heard reports of a few folks poking thorough, into crevasses, however I haven't heard of any incidents from our team.

Camp 1 is located at about 7,800 feet, at the junction with the Northeast Fork of the Kahiltna. It is a broad, spacious camping area at the base of a large hill, affectionately called "Ski Hill".

The team most likely packed up their extra food, fuel and clothes and carried it up Ski Hill and along the Kahiltna to a spot at about 10,200 feet where they buried it in the snow (making a cache). They returned back to Camp 1 and spent the night before packing up camp to move up to Camp 2 at 11,200 feet.

I don't have any definite word on the team, as cell phones don't get very good service on the lower glacier. I expect to hear from them over the weekend. We received word that they are at Camp 2, at 11,200 feet, which is located in a beautiful, glaciated basin.

I expect that they dropped back down to pick their cache up today and are therefore having a fairly easy, "active" rest-day. Tomorrow they should carry another cache up around Windy Corner at 13,500' to bury it at about 13,700'. We might hear from them tomorrow, as they might get pout on their cell phones from above Windy Corner.

One climber has left the team, with a case of pneumonia. Having suffered with pnuemonia on Denali one time myself, I can say that he made a good choice in not trying to push on. Your immune system is compromised at altitude and you do not heal up there. Our sympathies are with him, but he made the only good decision available to him.

Welcome to our May 6th West Buttress Expedition

When the trees begin to bud in the lower 48, a certain breed of climber begins to feel the tug to head north. The siren song of Alaska rings down and makes some of us long for a surreal landscape in which we feel very, very small.

The Alaska Range is a magical place and the crown jewel of the north is Denali. At 20,320 feet high, Denali is the highest mountain on the North American continent and is a beacon for climbers who wish to test their strength and perseverance by attempting to ascend "The Great One".

Mountain Trip began helping climbers achieve their Denali ambitions in 1976. We love what we do. We take great pride in believing that we do the best job of guiding Denali and we work very hard to continually earn the trust that our climbers place in us.

Welcome to the dispatch page for our May 6th West Buttress Expedition.