The North Side

The team was able to move up to their ultimate High Camp on the upper Harper Glacier on Saturday. They made camp, and are now awaiting an opening to go for the summit. The winds have picked up, and Chris reported gusts up to 50 mph yesterday. They are hoping to summit in the next day or two. Once they summit, it's all downhill to Wonder Lake! Hope to hear more from them today.

Another Good Day

Just got off the phone with Chris Kerrick(lead guide). They were able to go back down the ridge to 16,400ft, pick up their cache of gear, food etc. and carry it up and over Denali Pass to their ultimate high camp at over 18,000 ft on the Harper Glacier. They have now officially been to the North Side! They will spend tonight in the 17,200 camp, and move up and over with their tents and the rest of their gear tommorow. Sounds like things are moving along really well still, let's hope the weather holds for another couple of days and they slip thru without any punishing winds.

17,200 Feet!

I was misinformed yesterday, and they actually moved to high camp! The weather has continued to cooperate and they were able to move to high camp under blue skies. Today they went back down the ridge to 16,400 feet to pick up a bunch of gear that they had cached on the previous day. The next move will be up and over Denali Pass at over 18,000 ft and down to the upper Harper glacier. They will hope to summit from there, and then continue on down and out to the North.

WebCam

Check out the veiws of the range provided by Talkeetna Air Taxi's Web Cam!!!
http://www.talkeetnaair.com/webcam/index.html

A Rest Day

The team was able to carry a load of gear(food, fuel, and some extra equipment for the traverse) up to the ridge going to high camp at 16,400 feet yesterday. This is a big step towards moving up to the 17,200 foot West Buttress high camp. Today they took a well deserved rest and acclimitazation day, and hope to move to the 17 camp tommorow. The weather has remained fairly nice(not much wind) up high on the mountain for several days now, and they are taking advantage of this weather to get in position to summit and make the traverse.

If they call in with the Sat Phone tonight I'll update this again!

At Camp 3

Camp 3 is at 14,000 feet on the mountain, with a lot of other folks, waiting for the same weather window. The report for the last two days was cloudy and warm. Chris Kerrick is the team leader and I got word today that they are now at Camp 3. Everyone is doing great. Yippee!

11,000 feet

I don't know many details right now, but the plan for the day was to go up to 11,000 ft. There have been some high winds and low visibility recently, so we'll see how they did.