During the expedition, Rick Rochelle from NOLS AK kept sending emails to the family members and close friends of the expedition members. I include all the emails here so that my dear readers can learn the whole expedition in a nutshell before I sort out my personal journal.

The First Update: (Date: 06/13/2007)

Hello,

I have been in touch with the NOLS Denali Expedition. It has been a busy few days on the mountain! Unfortunately, this has included two expedition members leaving due to minor medical issues (sore hips and a 1″ long cut). Those two climbers have been in touch with their families, so if you are receiving this you can rest assured that your climber (child, spouse, or friend) is healthy!

My name is Rick Rochelle and I’m the Assistant Director of NOLS Alaska. We collected an email address or two from each participant of the expedition anticipating that we would hear from the expedition leaders occasionally. They carry a satellite phone (and walkie-talkies and a ground-to-air radio), primarily for emergency use, but also to call us for a few minutes every 7-10 days to let us know how things are going. From experience, we know that you care deeply about their progress!

Our Denali group arrived safely in NOLS Alaska in Palmer, AK last evening. Ten out of thirteen expedition members made

I am in Alaska again!!! The mountain range and the weather is gorgerous. My purpose of being here this time

Dear Friends, In the coming August, I’ll be participating in a 3-day climb to attempt Grand Teton. This climb is

This entry is totally not related to the great outdoors. Purely personal. Tomorrow I’m going to do my doctoral dissertation

On Wednesday, March 7th, our Katahdin group was hauling sleds retreating from the Roaring Brook campsite in Baxter State Park toward Abol Bridge campground parking lot. The sky looked like a blue bird; the temperature was cold, -10 F perhaps; the air was crispy and our cheeks were rosy due to the chill. There was no wind; it was as quiet as if we could trace every step the red squirrels put on the snow; however, my heart was stormy, “this could have been our summit day! How come we had to encounter over 35 mph gusts and below -35 F of temperature due to wind chill effect?” I kept looking at the peak on our way down, “Katahdin, you awed me the other day, and why do you look so inviting now?”

After a long, uneventful drive home, I’ve been putting a lot of thoughts toward this trip. I understand a mountaineer must have more turn backs than summits over her whole career, but I couldn’t get rid of the slight disappointment – the fact deviated too much from the ideal situation I was hoping for in which each of our group members had a chance to push their limits and taste the sweetness of the summit after hard work. I started to analyze every other possible scenario and finally drew this conclusion: although the outcome didn’t fulfill my ideal expectation, experiencing harsh conditions and having to make a tough decision to abandon the summit attempt catalyzed the integration and growth of our group. And this can be difficult to accomplish if we were in perfect conditions and everybody made their way to the summit without sweat.

KATAHDIN, MAINE – MARCH 2nd-8th 2007

The road trip northward started on a rainy Friday morning. As I proceeded east on route 78 into New Jersey I had the first thoughts of what this drive might be like, slow and wet. Little did I know I would not make the destination until the next day? After fighting rain that changed to snow around the New Hampshire/Maine boarder, then finally to a moderate to heavy snow that covered the road north of Portland, ME I realized I needed to stop short of the destination. Thirteen hours after starting out I ended up in a motel in Bangor, Maine ready for some rest. After speaking to Szu-ting and Yaroslav who were coming from the west via New Hampshire, Alex, Heather and Pasha who were several hours behind me, we decided it best for all of us to stop when we had enough of the terrible driving. We would meet the next day in Millinocket, Maine.

This year I haven’t been blogging much. One reason is that I’m tyring to graduate and the other reason is

I ice climbed the weekend of January 20 at Lake Placid, New York. Technically, this was not my first time ice climbing; the first time was in some unnamed crevasse in Alaska during my NOLS mountaineering course. The first experience was great even though we weren’t offered formal instructions on how to swing the ice tools or how to kick the crampons. We simply did whatever moves we thought fit under the warm, bright sunlight – everybody had fun. I thought I loved ice climbing.

I started to doubt whether I really liked ice climbing immediately after I stood in the crazy wind on Saturday, January 20. The guide explained to us that we could have driven to a more sheltered area if not because our group had a car problem therefore we didn’t meet him until noon. Every available layer was on which made me look like a pumpkin but I still couldn’t neutralize the wind chill. “Let’s climb! We’ll warm up.” Well, if I were already an experienced ice climber, maybe; however, I was such a newbie that it took me a century long to manage tightening the leashes of the ice tools with my heavy gloves.

Dear Readers, Recently I have been very busy for various things, and that’s why I haven’t updated my blog for