Denali Team 4 - Dispatch #4

Denali Team 4: May 30 - June 19, 2010

Guides: Dylan Taylor, Jeremy Ellison, Tom Kirby

Climbers: Paul Hameister (Black Rock, Australia), Martin Perry (Melbourne, Australia), Tim Myall (Witney, England), Andy Sweet (San Marcos, California), Brian Plaugher (Guerneville, California), Jay Jackson (Reading, Pennsylvania), Dimitri Nichiporov (Bloomington, Indiana), Respicius Baitwa (Moshi, Tanzania), and Siggi Soleyjarson (Gardabae, Iceland).

Lead guide Dylan Taylor called and left the following dispatch at 5:15 pm, Pacific Time on Friday, June 4th:

Hi everyone, this is Dylan again. We just ate some fried sausage and salami. We’re all doing well.

Yesterday we moved to 11,000 feet. So, today we went back and picked up our cache.

Life is good! We ate biscuits and gravy for breakfast. The air is warm – probably the warmest I’ve ever experienced at 11,000. We’ve all been wearing t-shirts most of the day.

Tomorrow, we will try to place a cache at 13,500 feet. The weather looks drab but you never know up here.

One last thing: we’re an all-male expedition, so there is a distinct lack of femininity. Thus, we have named the rope team with the two Aussies “The Sheilas”, the Tim’s (who is British) team “The Dorises”. We asked Siggi (who is Icelandic) what we should name the teams, but we couldn’t pronounce it!