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Bread Top and Bottom Thursday, June 15, 2000
Good morning Mountain Zone, this is Vernon Tejas with Alpine Ascents Denali expedition. My goodness, we've finally got up here; we're at 14,000 feet. We're looking out over Mount Hunter, Mount Foraker on the horizon, and we've got clouds covering the sun above us — we've got a roof above and a floor below. We're looking...we're kind of a sandwich right now, I can see for 100 miles through the clear middle of the deli here, but as I said we've got bread top and bottom. Here we are and I just wanted to introduce our group to you a little bit, there's Larry and Christian, Neil, Ruth, Anya, Allison and guiding with me is Allen, and, of course, this is Vern Tejas. So we're now acclimatizing at 14,000 feet, which is also known as the Medical Camp or Camp IV, and having a great time. Last night Marty Raney came over with his guitar and we stayed up past midnight singing songs and dancing and just carrying on under the big top. We have a cook tent that we make large enough that we can actually get about 12 people in there and have all sorts of fun. We're looking up at the massif of McKinley itself and also up the headwall, which is the West Buttress trail to the summit. Right now, we've got probably about 20 people heading up out of Camp IV, people from all over the world. It's an international site: we've got Italians, we've got Japanese, we've got a Mexican lone climber, we've got all sorts of interesting people from New Zealand, Australia and not to mention there's also Nova group here with Pete Athans working for the National Park Service right now. So, I mean, we've got talent from everywhere on the world. Jim Williams is here, he just got off of Mount Everest, as I did myself, and we're just both taking groups up. So please stay tuned and join us in a couple of days. We'll probably be getting back in touch with you when we get this phone swapped out from Scott Darsney who's above at 17.2, waiting for the weather to cooperate so they can make their summit attempt. That's ciao for now, and, like I said, we'll set you free up here on Denali, later.
— Vern Tejas, Alpine Ascents International, MountainZone.com Correspondent
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