Berg

Hear Wally's Call from Denali

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The winds still blowing. You should see the walls that these guys built. Basil, Joe, and Yian, all three, built some really bomber windbreaks around our tent, knowing what the Alaska Range can offer this time of year. We all slept very snug last night.

Today, at 14,000ft, we are watching the weather deteriorate, although not dramatically. The winds are high. We're out organizing a little extra food, enjoying a rest day and getting organized for a carry that I am certain we're going to do tomorrow, to 16,200ft, up onto the West Buttress, up over what's know as the Headwall, and is sometimes called the crux of the West Buttress route.

The Headwall itself, this year, is surprisingly blue and icy compared to the way I've seen it in past years. We should do well with it. We're practicing a little bit with our technique today. We're going to get an early start tomorrow and carry loads up to the 16,000ft notch where the West Buttress proper begins. Then we'll come back down here. Weather permitting, the next day or the following day we'll carry right though past that cache and go all the way up to 17,000ft — where we'll stage our summit attempt from.

All five members of our team are doing great; in good spirits, holding up well, acclimatized well, I would have to say, sleeping well at 14,000ft. We're psyched, ready to get this climb done in the next few days.

It is pretty interesting for me being up here because over the last couple-three weeks, so much exciting news is going over Everest's way. Dear friends of mine and projects that I have been closely involved with are moving ahead — exciting news. I depend on messages from Peter Potterfield on my dispatch line here and calls to my wife Sally to keep me abreast of the developments over there. It is very exciting. I know Brad Washburn is showing up in Talkeetna, probably tomorrow, and he's been keeping up with this very excitedly as well.

So I'm going to hang up, close now, call Sally, and find out what's going on via her access to Mountain Zone cybercasts. Last I heard, Charles Corfield was somewhere above the Hillary Step. As you can imagine, I am very excited to know what's been going on over there. So, we'll continue to keep you posted about this climb here on Denali and how we're all doing over the next few days.

— Alpine Ascents Guide Wally Berg, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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