May 6 2017 – Altitude: 2000 meters It’s another beautiful day but cold. We are totally geared up, harnesses with ascenders, 3 locking and 9 non-locking carabiners on the harness loops, all for a purpose, cordelettes for building crevasse rescue anchors, various pieces of webbing for chest harness and for securing the sled to the […]

The plane (Otter skiplane) flies past Denali. Lian, the female pilot, nicely turns the plane so both side can see the stunning views of North Americas giant. It’s a beautiful day, sunny as we land on the Glacier after a steep descent. Skis are down and we glide on the snow. Welcome to basecamp says […]

The big day has come. National park service briefing in the morning, getting serious about how hard this mountain is. Then skills practice, finalising bags and sleds, personal briefing from Colby Coombs owner of this mountaineering company. Quite intense and deep! And off to the airport for a 4pm flight to Denali base camp. Tonight […]

A breakfast of Hotcakes at the Roadhouse, a sort of gigantic Alaskan pancake. The final gear wrap up time in our room, figuring out which duffle we are taking, what stays in Talkeetna and what comes on the mountain. A quick lunch at the Denali Brew Pub where we meet Abdul, one of our team […]

After a hearty breakfast at the Snow City Cafe in Anchorage, we walk back to the hotel. I wrap up some work stuff while Patrick is packing and Xavier making final gear purchases at the local Walmart. At 1pm sharp, Tom is in front of the hotel with his GM van. We load our 6 […]

After 20 hours of flying, 18 hours of connection time in LA we have finally arrived in Anchorage at 4am on May 2 local time. Our 18 hours connection were well used. We were lucky to spend the day at my friend Dan and Sabrina’s place in Costa Mesa. After a long nap, we had […]