Shawn Connor
05/16/2007

(Photo by Bill Hatcher of National Geograpic)

Someone once said that the key to communication is the ability to express your thoughts and opinions and for the othe other person to actively listen. Well, that's what didn't happened between Jamie and myself.

He left a message describing what was going on and I misinterperted as the group had already summitted. Turns out they haven't reached the summit yet. Still making progress up the mountain establishing camps and getting acclimatized to the alttitude.

As the route is described in the book, "Denali Climbing Guide" by R. J. Secor, the West Rib is a popular technical route, not as severe as Cassin Ridge and was first climbed over a period of twelve days in 1983.

Presently, according to Jamie, they are at the 14,000' camp and making preperations to ascend to the 17,000' camp. According to the route description, they have to overcome a bergschrund and continue up difficult rock, followed by a 500' ice coulior to a camp site at 14,800'. Mixed climbing tj\hen leads to the top of the rib at 15,300', overlooking the Great Basin and the Washburn Route.

The West Rib route turns to the right and climbs rock and snow along the crest of ths upper ridge to an exposed campsite at 16'500'

This pretty much sums up some of the difficulties that the will face in the next few days. Hope Janmie's chest cold is doing better.

That's about it for now until I hear something new from them.

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Shawn
05/15/2007, Denali

Shawn here from the office... Jamie called today to let me know that they summited Denali the other day. The weather has been a factor during this trip. But apperantly, they had a break in the weather that allowed them to summit and return safely to camp.

Presently, they are at the 14,000' camp waiting on the weather to break so they can get back down the mountain and start the trek home.

Everyione is in good health, except Jamie. He developed a case of bronchitis at the beginning of the trip and has been following him during this trip. Good job on leading this trip while fight a chest cold at the same time.

We look forward to evryones safe return home so we can all hear the stories. I'll have Jamie update this log when he returns.

Shawn

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Jamie
05/06/2007, Talkeetna

Arrived in perfect weather to Talkeetna yesterday with the hopes of flying into base camp for Denali. The weather has come in and shut us down hard. Were still in Talkeetna, which in the grand scope of things has been fine. We've managed to sort food, go over technical systems, rest, eat, eat more and generally enjoy one anothers company.

Our team is myself, Austin Badeau as the assistant, Mike Glover and Jeff Kissell. the route is the West Rib of McKinley-a route I've been wanting to guide for a long time. It's technically more demanding than the West Buttress, a little more direct and something that will offer all of us plenty of excitment.

Were not scheduled to be off the peak for 3 weeks, so we still have plenty of time to sort things out with schedule and weather issues. In all it's been fun for me hanging out at the airport with all these great planes kicking around, watching them come and go, all bush planes, and all going deep into the Alaska Bush, it's great.

Were about to call it a day and sleep, something we all need before we climb. I'm probably not going to have much of a chance to do post while en-route, apologies in advance for that, but if I do get a moment we will.

Ciao,

Jamie

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