Denali Challenge 2012

We have just had confirmation that Ray and Steve have reached the summit of Mt. Denali!

They were not able to give more details, but we expect another update shortly!

Ray and Steve are returning to Head Wall and hoping to reach the summit on May 20th!

Today was a rest day for Ray and Steve back at Basin Camp.

The weather is good and Ray commented on the amazing views. Food is getting low.

Ray and Steve have completed the hard climb to the top of Head Wall at 4900m, and burried food on the ridge.

The Guys arrived at Motorcycle hill 3350m, and are now heading for Basin Camp where they will bury food.

4330m up and the temperature is -10C

Ray and Steve are at base camp and now heading to camp 1.

They stayed at camp 1 for 3 days due to heavy snow fall. It was tough going with the sledges!

The following update has just been received from Steve and Ray:

We are now in Talkeetna and are due to fly out to the glacier tomorrow morning at around 09:00. So with some luck we will be able to move straight on to camp 1.
The drive from Anchorage to Talkeetna was pretty straight forward and only took 2 hours, seemingly the traffic will get a lot worse as the season goes on. Today we had our interview with the park rangers, the briefing was very helpful with some great photo’s of the route and tips on where to cache supplies whilst carrying to the higher camps.  Taking smaller amounts, burying them part of the way up to the higher camps allows us to acclimatise by going up and sleeping lower down, it also helps prevent us exhausting ourselves with carrying really heavy loads.
Now it’s just after 9pm and we are looking at having an early night.  We plan to get up early and go for breakfast first, it will be our last meal that’s not freeze dried and eaten out of a bag!

The following update has just been received from Steve and Ray:

We arrived at Anchorage after an epic 26hr journey.  We arrived here at 20:30 on the 3rd that was 06:30 on the 4th at home.  The flights were OK we managed to eat everything put in front of us and Steve kept blagging more nuts and Pringles.  Getting through immigration at Minneapolis took forever and even though we had our luggage checked all the way through we had to collect it and book it back in!  Both Steve and I slept through the 5 hour flight to Anchorage so that passed pretty quickly, we just had stiff necks when we woke up.
Steve has stayed at the hostel before it’s not far from all the shops we need for getting more equipment and food.  It has fantastic coffee on the go all the time so I’m in heaven.  There’s still patches of snow around the place but it’s melting quick, We’ve been told they had almost 12ft of snow over the winter and so Denali might be a bit of a slog in snow shoes.
We spent this morning shopping for food and spent way over what we had budgeted for (well we can’t starve). Our next stop is lunch and more shopping this time it’s for climbing gear.
We are off to Kalteekna tomorrow morning, that’s about a 3 hour drive then we have our interview with the park rangers at 16:00.  If the weather is OK we hope to fly to the glacier on Sunday and start the real work.
We hope to have another update tomorrow if the hostel has Internet access.

On the 3rd May Ray Smith and Steve Berry will be flying out to Alaska to climb Mt Denali (Mt McKinley), the highest mountain in the North American Continent.

At 6194 m (20,320 ft) and at a latitude of 63° Denali is a serious climb. The thinner troposphere at the poles makes the acclimatisation as hard as being on higher Himalayan Mountains. Even the weather, being so close to the pole is severe with storms lasting days, winds of over 60mph and night time temperatures dropping below minus 40 C.

Steve and Ray shall be climbing the West Buttress route without a guide and unsupported. This means they have to be totally self sufficient for 3 weeks on the mountain, carrying or towing on a Pulk (sledge) everything needed; food, tents, fuel and climbing equipment.

Avoiding the many crevasse fields and load carrying the route several times makes it a tough task but one they are both confident in completing.

Steve currently works as a freelance expedition leader and has extensive experience of climbing unsupported in the Bolivian Andes as well as leading groups to far flung places such as; China, Nepal, Argentina and numerous other destinations.

Ray currently works as an IT specialist for BT South Tyneside and has a wealth of experience climbing in the Himalayas and in the Tien Shan mountains of Kyrgyzstan. He also served on HMS Andromeda during the Falklands conflict in 1982 and then in Port Stanley immediately after the conflict.

Steve and Ray agreed that we should link the Denali expedition to the Help for Heroes cause and raise awareness to the fantastic work they do; as well as trying to raise some much needed funds to allow Help for Heroes to continue helping members of the Armed Forces who have been wounded in service of our country.

Donations in support of the climb can be made here:

http://www.bmycharity.com/raysmith