Tejas

Scott Darsney's group is at 14,000ft. He moved up yesterday and all of his people are feeling pretty good. Up on the higher mountain at 17,000ft people have bailed out 'cause of the bad weather...[transmission fails].

We have some pretty strong winds blowing through. A low-pressure system is moving in again and it's going to definitely put the crimp on anybody going to the summit for the next couple of days. They're calling for 40 knots plus up on the summit plateau.

Scott Darsney's moved up to 14,200ft and is celebrating his solstice right now inside his tent. And I'm sure that he is singing, "Bye-Bye Miss American Pie," which is one of his all-time favorites. I remember five years ago sharing a solstice party with him inside our cook tent and singing that many, many times.

Jim Williams, unfortunately, had to finally pull the plug after five days of hanging out at 17,200ft. His party was pretty much psychologically blown out waiting for the weather to come around. And it still looks like it's going to be another four to five days before it actually starts cooperating. We hope to move up into position while the weather is bad and, hopefully once we get there and we get a rest day, things will turn plus and we'll be able to go up to the summit.

A couple of things are going on the mountain. A Finnish man just walked by with a pair of skis and asked me what the weather report was. He says he's on his way to the do the Messner Couloir, which is a very steep gully from the south face right above the 14,000 foot camp. If he skis that it'll be pretty impressive especially with all this new snow. I think there might be some wind slab...I hope he is very, very cautious.

Another thing that is rumored on the mountain—I'm not sure if it's taken place or even if it's possible—there's a couple of French guys who are camped up in Denali Pass at 19,200ft. They were going to try to fly off the north summit all the way out to Wonder Lake, which is about 20 miles away, with paragliders. And if they do that, that will be a fairly dramatic way to exit the mountain. I've thought about that for years, it's just a...actually to think that someone might do it, logistically, it's just a super big challenge because you have to clear all the glaciers before you land. If you don't you could end up in a crevasse field that you'd be unable to extract yourself from. So, hopefully they have had good luck and they've flow out to Wonder Lake. I'll try to verify that, whether or not it's happened, in the next few days. That's pretty much what's happened right now.

Let's see, I am looking over a blanket of clouds that are hanging about 12,000ft. I can see the top of Hunter and Mount Foraker on the horizon and it's beautiful where I am sitting right now. We are out of the wind and looking down on the Peters Glacier off toward the sun. It's now 9:30, almost 10 o'clock, and the sun is still high in the sky, of course this is the longest day in the year. So we're looking forward to having this venus of daylight tonight. I'm sure we won't be getting too much sleep, even in the snow cave where we've taken refuge from the wind. I am sure everybody's spirits will be high during this happy solstice.

So the best to you and may your solstice be warm and sunny as well—without this wind [laughs]. This is 'good night' from Vernon at 16.2, bye-bye.

— Alpine Ascents Guide Vern Tejas, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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