Friday, June 02, 2006

Home safe in Anchorage

Hello there!

Just thought I'd give a brief Denali story. We got back from the mountain on Tuesday after pulling an all-nighter crossing the Kahiltna coming down from 14,200' camp. It was a great trip! Had pretty much great weather for most of the time and met some really fun people. Things changed when we moved up to 17 however, we were sadly reduced to 3 when Steve decided to go down. We arrived at high camp on what we thought was a week of high pressure, so we were in no rush to make a summit bid. Then things got windy, reallll windy. We spent a few days in battlemode, then made a summit attempt on Friday (?) making it to the Football field at 19,300 or so before havingto turn around. I was worked after spending so much time at high camp and the difficulties that comewith it, then it turned to a nasty white out and that was that. The following day was the windiest by far and we built massive walls for the tent while getting tossed like rag dolls in the 80-100mph gusts. Made for a genuine Denali experience! Nice to come back to summer! Hope to see you all soon.
Eric