Denali Team 4: May 22 to June 11
Guides: Angela Seidling, Ben Traxler, and Erik Johnson
Climbers: Llew Gartrell (Australia), Nicholas Durack (UK), Peter Grant (UK), Edward Iglesias (Australia), Paul Watkins (Australia), and Martin Halion (UK), and Jon Cook (UK).
Angela called in with a dispatch at 11:45 am on May 31st:
“Hello! This is Angela calling you. I tried to call on Sunday, but phone died or got cut off at some point, so I wasn’t sure if you got my message or not.”
“In any case, on Saturday, we moved to Camp Three (14,000 feet). On Sunday, we did a back carry down to 13,500 feet. Then on Monday, we had a rest day and built some walls around camp. We also got in some fixed line practice.”
“Today we plan on placing a cache at the top of the fixed lines. So, yes, we’ve been very productive!”
“The weather seems to be holding out for us, too. We keep getting gloomy weather reports, but so far, it’s been decent. Right now, the summit looks pretty ugly. It has a huge black cloud over it. I guess that doesn’t matter because we’re not quite there yet.”
“Here are some messages:”
Peter says: My tent works until 13,000 ft!
Llew says: Love to Mom and Dad.
Jon says: Tell my friends and family thanks for the messages.
From the whole group: We like the messages, keep ‘em coming!
Ok, that’s it. Call you tomorrow and we can get some messages read to us.”
[Jon Cook and Martin Halion are both heading down with Ben this evening.]