Denali Team 6: June 5 to June 25 Dispatch #9 Washburn Thumb

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), Kevin Fourie (South Africa), Luke Richmond (Thailand), and Bill Strycharz (Oregon).

Andrew called at 7:00pm on June 15th with this dispatch:

“Today we got up pretty early and had a good breakfast – fried up some bagels – then headed out. We planned to cache at 17 Camp and everyone dealt with the cold really well. The team practiced fixed lines yesterday and got that dialed in; it really paid off, because it made things very smooth. What’s even better is that we had the fixed lines all to ourselves! But when we were up there, weather tuned on us. Half of the team went down right away, and the second team pushed on and went down a little later. We got most of the cache done and stashed some things near Washburn Thumb. It was still helpful, even though it wasn’t exactly as planned. Everyone’s back down at camp now and it is snowing a lot right now. We’re hearing avalanches all around, and nice to be sitting in a safe place! I believe we’re probably stuck here for a day or two. We’re all trying to be optimistic about the weather! I’ll check in later. That’s all for now.”