Darsney

Hear Scott's Call from Denali

Click for [RealAudio]  [Windows Media]

(Requires FREE RealPlayer or Windows Media)

The biggest problem was the lower glacier had melted out incredibly and there were a lot of crevasses that don't ever, normally, appear. We had a few falls into the crevasses on our team; I had to spend some time rescuing people. I went over a slight dip that I knew was a kind of a crevasse and then another dip came along and the third guy behind me, Mike, fell right in over his head and was dangling with the sled on the edge of the lip. So we had to set up a Z–pulley rescue system to get him out. And one time I fell in up to my neck and Bill had to drag me out. And a couple times people would sort of punch through, but not all the way, but we kept a tight rope and it was the worse I'd ever seen it in the last six years: just really hot, melted out, a lot of diagonal slots.

And then another team that was just ahead of us, four guys, they had a few falls. And one time we came along and found one fellow—they had just crossed the diagonal crevasse that was diagonal to their rope lines—so he went in probably a good 12-15 feet inside a crevasse and we had quite a plan to extricate him out. He was also diabetic and had to deal with his conditions: his... was fading a little bit. And then on top of that we probably spent another six hours, what normally took to do just another two hours, around the corner to Base Camp. And so it was a long day—it made for a long descent.

We're all off the mountain--all safe and happy. We got off late Saturday night, probably around 9:30–10 o'clock at night, back to Talkeetna where we had copious amounts of king salmon and beer that night, just before the restaurant closed, and walked over there in our sweaty, stinking duds.

And now we're just king of packing up gear for the end of the season. And I just saw Base Camp Annie; she just flew out today. And talking with Annie, there were two guys who were helping us shuttle our gear around at the air taxi place at Base Camp, and suddenly what happened was—we heard this morning, at four o'clock I got a call —that one of them has fallen in 40 feet. This is the new two guys, new team, just flew in late in the season. So quite a time for crevasses up there and definitely time to get off the lower glaciers on the mountain. So this is Scott Darsney signing off for now and maybe we'll call you up with a few more updates or tidbits before the next day or so. Anyway, talk to you later, bye-bye.

— Alpine Ascents Guide Scott Darsney, MountainZone.com Correspondent

EXPEDITION DISPATCHES