Everybody's back off the mountain!!

The rest of the team made it to Talkeetna tonight, as the weather has finally improved slightly. Unfortunately a couple of guys who were already out changed their flights and have already left for the airport, so they won't get to have a final dinner and goodbye with the team.

It's always hard not to reach the summit, but it's a part of climbing big mountains that we don't have control of. Hopefully all of the climbers can look back fondly on their memories and feel good about working hard and making some friends along the way.

It's good to see the crew back down safely (with just a few bit's of frostbite on the cheeks) . The mountain lived up to it's reputation for the last few weeks of being a gnarly, cold place.

Some of them made it to Talkeetna...

Well the weather has given them one last kick as they are trying to get off the mountain. Durny, Greg, and 3 of the climbers (whose names I wasn't given last night) are still at base camp. One flight with part of our crew got out last night before the weather shut down flying for the rest of the day. If you friend or family member got to Talkeetna on the one flight, you've probably already recieved a call, or will soon. The rest of the crew is sleeping and eating their way thru the base camp food cache, and trying to keep a good attitude as they wait for the weather to let them out of the mountains.

Flying to Talkeetna

The team arrived in base camp last night, and they are getting on planes to Talkeetna this morning. They'll probably have a burger and a beer before heading into Anchorage this afternoon.

Heading to Base Camp

The team pulled out of 14k this morning, and expect to be in Base Camp tonight, and back for breakfast at the Talkeetna Roadhouse in the morning. Not a lot of planes flying into base camp right now due to the weather, but with some luck they'll be off the glacier soon.

Still at 14K this evening

They were still at 14k this evening waiting for the weather to calm a bit. They've hunkered down again and nobody is moving on the upper mountain right now. Lar got some frost nip on his cheek on the way down yesterday, it sounded like a pretty stormy nasty day.

Coming on Down...

Well, they made the tough decision to come down from High Camp last night. They moved up in the calm between the high pressure and wind, and the low pressure that has moved into the region now producing snow, and some more wind. The weather was picking up yesterday, and they decided to get back down to 14k. Durny called when they arrived at 14 last night, but it sounded like it was getting a bit stormy there, and they were going to spend the night. They'll move on down to base camp in one push once the weather allows them to travel again. It's unfortunate that they didn't get a chance to summit, but they all worked really hard, and gave it a good go. Sometimes that's just what you get when you try to climb the biggest mountain in N. America...

Greg Nappi has returned to base camp with another team to recover from his illness, and wait for the rest of the team.

Snowy day at high camp.

They were able to move on up to high camp at 17,200 ft yesterday. This is always a big move, and it finally puts them within striking distance of the summit. It took them about 10 hours to move up yesterday, but they were delayed by a falling Pole. That's right, a Polish climber was travelling on the ridge unroped, slipped and fell, and was caught by the rope between 2 climbers on Durny's team. Our climbers were able to self-arrest and stop the fall, and are fine, but the Polish climber had a minor shoulder injury and needed a bit of help. It sounds like the Polish climber was very lucky that our roped team was there to stop him from falling a long way and surely getting hurt.

It started snowing this morning at High Camp, and when Durny called at about 10am Alaska time it was a bit windy with gusts of up to 30 mph. Not a summit day...
Looking down the ridge from High Camp. This is some of the most fun and scenic climbing on the W. Buttress. If you click on the picture and enlarge it you can see climbers on the ridge.