Monday, April 30, 2012

Denali Team 1: April 29 to May 19 - Dispatch #1

Guides: Alasdair Turner, Chad Cochran, Aili Farquhar

Climbers: Maria Conceicao (Dubai), Stephen Martin (UK), Christopher Kulish (Colorado), Zlatko Filipovic (Sweden), Steve Bain (Colorado), Lorenzo Baraldini (Italy), Christopher Heywood (Oman), Sergey Dmitriev (Russia), Vitaly Simonovich (Russia)


Alasdair called at 11:47pm PST with the following dispatch:


"Hi there.  It's Alasdair with Team 1 at Kahiltna Basecamp.  Chad Cochran, myself, and the rest of the team flew in today.  We were treated to an extremely smooth flight and beautiful weather, which provided us gorgeous views of the entire Alaska range.  When we arrived at the airstrip, we happily discovered that Aili, Maria, and Chris Heywood had already built a camp for us to move into!  Maria and Chris flew in a few days ahead of the rest of us for some additional training from AIli before we arrived.  It seems like they put that training to good use!


This evening we enjoyed some burgers for dinner and are planning..." *



*At this point Alasdair was disconnected.  This will happen periodically as clouds move overhead and satellites move out of position for transmissions.    


Denali Team 1 climbers accompanied by AAI guide Chad Cochran happily pose on the runway in Talkeetna before flying to Basecamp on the  Kahiltna Glacier.




No comments: