Denali Expedition - June 1999

Writes Anthony van Tonder from KwaZulu-Natal Section on 30 June 1999:

Steve Camp, Ian Bailey and myself got back from Denali a week ago. (WM: Ian is also a member of KZN Section)

• After waiting 2 days in Talkeetna for suitable flying weather, we were dropped at basecamp (7 200 ft / 2 181m) by skiplane on 2/6/99.
• Departed for summit from high camp (17 200 ft / 5 300 m) at 1.00 pm on 14/6/99 (after weather cleared at midday).
• Reached summit (20 320 ft / 6 194 m) on 14/6/99 at 11.00 pm (24 hour daylight in summer).
• Took 8 hours to descend in a whiteout, which suddenly appeared from nowhere just as we got the summit, returning to high camp at 7.00 am on 15/6/99.
• Returned to basecamp and flew out on 18/6/99.

We were very lucky to have had good weather most of the time, hence our relatively short time on the mountain.

With our remaining time we went sea kayaking on the fjords near Seward to "thaw out" but we still got cold as there was snow down to sea level and we didn't take all our warm mountain gear along.

All three of us used Capestorm Rough Diamond sleeping bags and found them to be very warm. Two of us used Capestorm Aquablock shell jackets and found them to be very good and breathe well. I used a First Ascent Polartec jacket and sweatshirt and found them very good. Greg Greubel of Mountain Supply Co assisted us with advice and equipment before we left.

We may get around to writing a longer story about our trip later.

I have scanned 15 of my slides to 400x600 pixels and compressed them into this slide show (of only 489 KB).