A video of Windy Corner on a windy day

Windy Corner hads been pretty calm for the past few days, and let's hope that it stays that way for a couple more, but this footage, shot in 2007, might give an idea of what it can be like in challenging conditions.

A view of Camp 2

A view looking up Motorcycle Hill from Camp 2

An overview of their route.

I'm no Photoshop genius, but here is an overview of the middle part of the route the team is following. Much of tomorrow's route is obscured by the snowy ridge in the foreground.
Click on the photo to see a larger version of it.

At Camp 2

The team climbed up from 7,800' (2380 m) and off the Kahiltna Glacier into a stunningly beautiful basin and the site of our Camp 2. Located at 11,200' (3413 m), this camp is ringed by huge ice cliffs and seracs to the south and southeast, a moderately steep snow slope called Motorcycle Hill to the east, rock and ice slopes to the north and the view opens up as you gaze off to the west. The views in the evening are sublime, as the sun passes low across the northern horizon and paints the peaks to the west and southwest in orange and pink hues of alpenglow.

They found good traveling weather yesterday. It was actually quite chilly for this time of year, which froze the trail up nice and hard, making for relatively easy travel.

Today the team will descend down to the cache of food, fuel and supplies that they left at 10,000' the day before yesterday. It only takes about 20 minutes to descend to the cache site, and another hour or so to climb back to camp, so today is effectively an active rest day. Tomorrow they will climb up Motorcycle Hill and continue up and around Windy Corner to make a cache just below Camp 3, at 13,500' (4115 m).

At Camp 1

The team woke in the very early hours of the morning, packed up their tents, loaded all their kit, supplies and gear into their packs and onto their sleds and headed out of Base Camp. The glacier drops for about 600 feet as the Southeast Fork of the Kahiltna merges with the main body of the Kahiltna Glacier.

The "confluence" of the two is one of the most troublesome stretches for crevasses, but the crew found easy and straightforward travel this morning. The nighttime temps dropped low enough that everything froze hard, and a foot of recent snow helped make for a great day of glacier travel.

They are safely camped at a sppot located at 7,800' (2380 m) on the Kahiltna Glacier, just across from the confluence with the Northeast Fork of the Kahiltna. The view up the NE Fork looks up at the west side of the South Face of Denali, and the climbers could see most of the mountain as they rested in camp throughout the day. The very summit was obscured by clouds, but the view was impressive, by all accounts.

Here is a view looking up the NE Fork, from a previous expedition.

Thursday, June 25- In the Air!!!

I just received a call from Bill Allen, who is also trying to fly in to base camp, and he says the weather in Talkeetna is beautiful and that the team is about to fly into the Southeast Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier.

The crew drove up to Talkeetna yesterday and checked in with the National Park Service. They hoped to fly to the glacier, but the weather had other plans. They had an enjoyable evening in Talkeetna, and Heidi called to say that everyone was in great spirits, and not frustrated in the least by the delay. Noone really wants their pilots to push the weather envelope, no do they?

Today they will arrive at basecamp, located at 7,200 feet (2500 m) and set up a basic camp, so they can get some sleep this evening. Much of today will be busy rigging sleds for travel up the glacier and with reviewing crevasse rescue techniques. The lower Kahiltna is quite broken with crevasses these days, so the team will travel during the wee hours of the morning, just before sunrise, when the glacier is (hopefully) most frozen.

Tomorrow should have them established in camp at Camp 1, located at 7,800 ft (2830 m).