Summit!

Chris, Tom, and Patrick reached the summit yesterday!  James was feeling ill at high camp and he descended with Constantine, and has already reached basecamp.  Chris and crew should be down tomorrow and will fly to the comfort and relative civilization of Talkeetna soon.

At High Camp!

They made it to 17,000 feet.  They should get a good day for a summit attempt today or tomorrow!   I'll update as soon as they call.

Moving to 17,000 camp

Well it looks as if the West Rib team has shifted gears and is going to attempt to summit via the West Buttress.  They moved up to high camp today, and will probably take a rest day before a summit attempt, unless they are all feeling good, and the weather is too nice to pass up.  

We hope to hear from them again tonight.

14,000 ft Camp

The West Rib team is in good company at 14,000 feet on the W. Buttress route.  The wind has been blowing hard for the couple of days, but is expected to settle this evening.  We have 3 Mountain Trip groups hanging out drinking coffee, and watching the wind together at 14k right now.  They hope to be able to get back to the task of climbing a big mountain tomorrow.

14,000 ft Camp

The West Rib team was able to move on up to the 14,000 ft camp yesterday as the weather has settled down a bit in the Alaska Range.  They moved from 11k to 14k in about 4 hours, which is a really strong pace, and what we'd like to see in a team attempting the more difficult West Rib.  They lost a couple of days to the storm that just passed thru, but they seem to be very strong, and in position to do great.  

Another Night at 11,000 feet

They are going to spend another night at 11,000 tonight.  They tried yesterday to move to 14,000 in some pretty high winds, and had to turn around when the sleds began to fly behind them in the wind.  Today brought much the same weather, but it's looking better tonight, and they have high hopes for tomorrow.  

Still at 11,000 feet

Well they weren't able to make the move to 14,000, and are still at 11,000 ft.   The winds are blowing pretty hard right now, with reports of 60mph winds at the 14,000 camp.  They are ready to move on up as soon as this storm blows thru, which could be another day or so...