The Denali Expedition in a nutshell — The Second Expedition Update
by Rick Rochelle

Date: 06/14/2007

Greetings,

News from the evacuees: Erin’s crew saw a fox den with kits on the hike out. Seth’s group saw a couple of grizzly bears 100-200 yards away while in the vehicle on the drive out. Erin flew home last night and Seth flew home this morning. They got to spend time sharing stories. It was sad to see them go.

I heard from the expedition again this morning (6/14) and I have a correction: Last time I heard from Erica and crew, she was at 7,300 feet, not 10,500′. They were about to back-ferry down through the Lower Icefall to the cache at 5,700′ yesterday, then go back up to camp at 7,300′. I misunderstood their elevation over a garbled satellite connection, which is why I was astonished at their progress.

The whole group of 13 reunited at 7,300 feet on the Muldrow Glacier at 7 pm last night approximately here:

This was quite a push for the evacuation teams, so they are taking a rest day today. Erica and all the folks who originally stayed on the mountain are working on putting in a route through the Great Icefall to 10,000′ at the base of Karsten’s Ridge today. Everyone plans to camp together at 7,300′ tonight and hopefully move to 10,000′ tomorrow.

One of you asked about the weather. Erin and Seth tell me it was quite nice (aside from the clouds of mosquitoes). I put a link to the weather in the previous email. Here is a webcam the park just announced this morning!
http://www2.nature.nps.gov/air/webcams/parks/denacam/denacam.cfm
If you click on landmarks, you will see where the mountain is in perfect weather.

This shows where the webcam is and in what direction it is photograhing:
http://www2.nature.nps.gov/air/webcams/parks/denacam/denamap.cfm

Finally, below is a photo of the group! This is from June 2nd just before leaving NOLS Alaska.
Back Row: Seth, Jon, Dan, Ben (Instructor), Mark
Middle Row: Lanie, Naomi, Erin, Robbie, Geno
Front Row: Geoff, Szu-Ting, Patrick (Instructor), Erica (Lead Instructor), John
All three instructors have been on Denali before–two of them while working and the other reaching the summit on a personal trip.

Denali Legends 2007

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