Denali Prepped And Mt. Rainier Worked

March 5, 2014

Well Mt. Rainier asserted her authority once again this week… The Denali Prep Seminar got into the park as scheduled, just before a series of storms rolled in. The team knew the weather was on the way, they just hoped they could get into the park before the park shut things down. They did. Barely.

The beauty of these seminars is that the weather is something that climbers want and expect to see, there’s no better way to get to know your gear and your systems.  The trouble this week is that it actually needed to be a bit colder, yes colder. The first couple days were nice and cold bringing in a couple feet of snow, but the freezing level went up the last 36-48 hours turning the snow to rain.

In the end the gang pulled the plug a couple days early and have opted for some training down here in Ashford. They’ll work on some crevasse rescue/self-extraction and get a little deeper into the world of navigation. While it’s great to practice these skills in the field, sometimes it’s better to get things dialed in a controlled environment.

Tye Chapman