Back in Talkeetna

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!

Heading to Base Camp

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.

Summit!!

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.

Their persistence and patience paid off, good work guys.

Another Snowy Day...

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.

Wind and weather

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.

Summit Day!

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.

Sunny Day!

If you are checking the blog regularly, check out the webcam views of the Alaska Range this morning. It's the nicest day we've seen for over a month. Hopefully they are getting a chance to go for the summit today!

http://www.talkeetnaair.com/web-cam

There is also a link to the right ------>