Berg

Hear Wally's Call from Denali

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I left you with words of rescues and that's probably the first thing I should update you on. [click here for news release] Good news all around, the ground rescue did take off here last night, as you know. Jamie Pierce, Alpine Ascents guide, was in a team to carry in support. Jack Tackle and several members of the parks service patrol up here...up high bivvied, in fact spent the night up here at 17.2 last night. Everyone prepared to go across the glaciers too, and climb to support these three Brits up at 19,000ft. In fact, however, the Lama was able to, the park service Lama was able to, pick two of these climbers from 19,000ft last night and return them down to safety. In a hospital, they're going to need, they're frostbit and in one case a shoulder injury.

Unfortunately, one fellow took off, one of the three members of the party. We assume he is trying to descend the West Buttress this morning and we're hoping that in the good visibility, calmer weather today, somebody's going to find this fellow and he's doing well. So that is an update on the rescue scene here.

So we're back focused to this route. And, basically, Jamie Pierce and Wes, Exum guide, who's up here working on a mountain trip. The West Buttress climb is going in tandem with ours, sort of; we've been with these guys the whole way, lead guide is Chris Morris. Wes and Jamie are going to go up with a fixed line, and at this moment I see them leaving. And they're going to take care of placing some fixed line low on the headwall at a bergschrund there that's always presents with a pretty steep icefall. There is old fixed line in place from last year above that point. But certainly from the perspective of the guided parties (and this Alpine Ascents team, the Mountain Trip team, and one AAI team of, American Alpine Institute team, that happen to be here, are the lead commercial trips here on the West Buttress) we collectively take it on to fix this thing to a reasonable standard for guided ascents. Of course, all our climbers use these fixed lines going up and down the headwall.

So, Jamie and Wes are going to do this work this morning. And myself, and Joe and Yian and Basil are going to leave about an hour behind and join these guys. Jamie will join us at that point and we will try to ascend to the notch at 16,200ft, on the West Buttress, where we'll place a cache of food that we'll use as we climb on through to 17,000ft and prepare for our ascent, hopefully in the next few days.

Yian is doing really well; we get a kick out of Yian from Singapore because he is not really a hot drink kind of guy. Basically, when you are on an expedition like this hot drinks keep you going: hot Tang, hot Cocoa, hot coffee...Gatorade—whatever. When it is 18 below and you're enjoying hot drinks and you see a fellow put ice in his, as it is maybe only tepidly warm water, it always is amusing. The point is hydration and Yian gets his hydration anyway he can.

I just left Joe Laroy over there trying to get his feet into some fairly stiff, one-fourth boots and I think he, probably by the time that I get back, he'll be quite warm having [Unintelligible]. Basil is usually, is Mr. Camp Master, running around building a few extra blocks, and getting ready to, as well as getting ready to climb, making sure our camp is in good order before we leave.

I'll report to you guys on how our carry goes perhaps at the end of the day, if we're not too tired, give you a weather report. This is a very critical time for our effort here, in the next few days. Tonight will be our fourth night at 14,000ft. We're going to have acclimatization in a pretty good way by the time this is over. As the weather cooperates we'll be able to go high on the route and climb this mountain. It's still extremely cold up there. Frostbite is always a consideration and something that you've got... [transmission fails]

— Alpine Ascents Guide Wally Berg, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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