Denali Team 2: May 6 to May 26, Dispatch #3

Guides: Mike Pond, Dustin Byrne, Alan Rousseau

Climbers: Garry McMahon (UK), Roy Cursley (UK), Kayla Cooper (Washington), Damon Vincent (Missouri), Greg Lamarche (B), Margaret St. Hill (Australia), Vijay Kumar (New Jersey), Christine Burke (Australia)

Mike Pond called at 8:49pm PST with the following dispatch:

We are currently at Camp 1 we did a cache today up near Kahiltna pass. It was a good day out to gain some altitude for acclimatization and to keep moving. We actually had pretty good weather but ran into a bit of a white out, which was exciting but uneventful.

We also ran into chad who was bringing Lorenzo down to base camp. Dustin accompanied him down to Base Camp. They should be there by now. We will bring Chad back up to 11,000 tomorrow when we move camp up there. He will then move back up to join Team 1 on Friday or Saturday.

Everybody's doing pretty good feeling strong getting used to the load carrying that is the hallmark of Denali. We're excited to get a little higher up the mountain and get onto the buttress proper.

Tonight Alan made some excellent pesto pasta. Tomorrow we're looking forward to a healthy diet of hauling sleds. So we have that to look forward to which is always an appealing appetizer to the main event here on the mountain, which is dinner. I hope everyone out there is doing well we'll be in touch after we move camp tomorrow.