Denali Team 6: June 5 - 25, Dispatch #7 At Camp 3, 14,000'

Denali Team 6: June 5 to June 25

Guides: Aidan Loehr, Andrew Yasso, and Erin Smart

Climbers: Simon Thomas Gower (Australia), Richard Van Der Sprenkel (UK), Alan Laidlaw (UK), Anna Koufos-Slade (Virginia), Chok Lin Lui (Australia), Luke Richmond (Thailand), and Bill Strycharz (Oregon).

Andrew called at 9:30pm on June 11th with this dispatch:

"Hi everyone, this is Andrew calling in with a dispatch from 14,200 feet on Denali's West Buttress where we arrived this afternoon.  We had a quick breakfast early in the morning and left Camp 2 (11,000 ft) and made our way to 14 Camp.  It took six hours, and we avoided most of the weather, the warm weather that is.  We enjoyed traveling in the cold so we wouldn't be burning up, which sounds like a funny thing to say on Denali!

We made it around Windy Corner with no problems, and when we arrived at 14 camp, we walked into what we think is Angela Siedling and Team 4's old camp.  We wanted to say thanks to Angela and her team for making the best camp site ever.  It has beautiful wals, very conveniently arranged.  We are very, very thankful.  It's quite nice to have teams on Denali to share sites with. 

Everyone is getting settled in, staying hydrated, and doing really, really well.

Aidan made a delicious burrito dinner today with bacon and the whole works.  We'll be having leftovers from this awesome meal in the morning!  We had a birthday on the mountain today, Luke Richmond turned 27.  What a place to celebrate a birthday!

The weather has now moved in, and it's snowing lightly right now.  Looks like the inside of a ping pong ball up here but that's OK.  We're all looking forward to tucking into our sleeping bags and getting a really good night of sleep, enjoying no wake up call in the morning for the first time in about a week.  Tomorrow is a quasi-rest-day with a back carry.  It should be good.  OK, we'll call again tomorrow."

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