Back in town, moving on the the next adventure

Mike called me from the hotel in Anchorage, they waited out a few days of bad weather in basecamp and got their flight back to civilization. Almost immediately the jumped in a MT vehicle and hit the road, trying to get on a flight out of Anchorage to start climbing the next high point. Good luck to the Moniz party on their next series of adventures!

Headed back to Base Camp

Jacob just called with more details about summit day. Apparently, they had a truly amazing day with great conditions. They felt so good after their quick round trip to the summit, that they packed up camp at 17,200' and descended down to the 14,200' camp.

They are now packing up and readying themselves for the long descent down to Base Camp at 7,200' on the Southeast Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier. They are traveling on skis, so they should make relatively quick work of the descent. Word from other teams is that the snow on the lower glacier is fairly isothermic, meaning it is something like soft, mashed potato goo... they'll be thankful for those skis!

We'll keep you posted on the team's progress and on Matt's upcoming adventures, which I suspect will be impressive, but I'm not talking...;)

Summit!

The team made a 5:30am departure from high camp and went for the summit, taking advantage of unusually warm temperatures and Alaska's excess of daylight to make a ten-hour round trip summit of Denali. Everyone performed great and hit the weather window perfectly, just ahead of a few forecast low pressure systems. When I talked to Jacob this afternoon the team was packing up camp in preparation to move down to 14 camp tonight; the plan is for the team to try to move down to basecamp tomorrow and fly as soon as the weather permits. The range is socked in at lower elevations right now, but change is the norm and let's all hope for some flyable weather!

Summit attempt

Team Moniz went for the summit yesterday and were turned back at the top of Denali Pass by high winds, which is a very common scenario. Jacob called once the team was in camp again and drinking hot drinks- as is also a common scenario, the weather quieted down in the afternoon and things were looking favorable. So now the team is on the familiar routine of hurry up and wait, but being prepared for the summit attempt with packed backpacks and full water bottles means they will be able to jump on good weather when it does come around. The team has plenty of food and fuel to wait out even the most persistent storm systems, so they'll poke their heads out of the tent to keep an eye on the weather and be ready to pounce when the opportunity presents itself.

High camp

Jacob called yesterday during dinner to report that the Moniz expedition had moved to high camp sucessfully and were settled in- warm, dry and full, feeling fine. It was a short call from Jacob as everyone was eager to get to sleep after a hard day of travel, but it sounds like moving up the ridge was much easier this time and there were no climber jams to slow their progress. Jacob said it was unusually warm for high camp, so let's hope it stays warmer and the weather holds out for their summit attempt.