Darsney

Hear Scott's Call from Denali

Click for [RealAudio]  [Windows Media]

(Requires FREE RealPlayer or Windows Media)

We didn't go for the summit today, it was just a little too blustery up there. And if we're going to tackle some of these winds, we wanted a good rest day coming up. So we just kind of hanged here today, and brewed up, told stories, and talked about rescues in the Himalayas, and the views up here and all kinds of neat stuff, so it was really neat.

Hopefully, the weather forecast through Thursday now looks kind of like these low clouds down below, we're overlooking a sea of clouds; it's kind of undercast here and we can just see the South Buttress, and Hunter and Foraker and a little bit of the West Buttress and everything else is kind of socked in. I can see the [?] Range, Mount Redoubt and Iliamna now off in the distance they're poking their heads out off down towards the Aleutians. But that is about it here. It is nice and sunny, but it's a little bit cool probably about zero right now.

Interestingly, we've been reading different paperbacks while we've been sitting in camp here. I just read Jimmy Buffett's, A Pirate Looks at Fifty. I am reading in the book—Jimmy Buffett actually came to my hometown of Dutch Harbor, in Alaska, back in '91 and I was out of town then and didn't get to meet him, but he gave a small concert there—and I was reading his biography here and he was talking about flying around with Doug Geating around Denali and wanting to maybe climb Denali. And then he had second thoughts and he thought about people in their Mountain Hardwear sleeping bags, and in their North Face tents freezing their butts off. And I was reading that same exact passage in the book while I was lying inside my Mountain Hardwear sleeping bag in my North Face tent. So, it was a little bit of deja vu there, I think for some reason, maybe from that song "Off To See the Lizard" that he wrote.

Anyway, we're all doing good we're going to get up at five, Bill and I are going to get up at five and check the weather and if we go up tomorrow we'll give you a blow by blow as we go up, if our fingers allow it. I've got a few other things to read from some of the other folks on our team here. I'll just read a couple; we've got a couple of guests here tonight.
This is from Eitan:
To my family in Israel, my sister, my girlfriend, Zuna and Tensenelli[phonetic spellings]: I am here at 17,200 before the summit, I feel good so far and hopefully we will make it. The view is beautiful. This is really an adventure of a lifetime. See you soon, Eitan Eisenstein.
And now we have a note from John:
This is John at 17,200 saying hello to friends, family, and people back in Reno.
I can't make out anymore of that...and let's see here's a note from Eric, another on our team:
So here we are at high camp at 17,200ft, just spent two exhausting days carrying our gear, but now we're waiting, sitting strong for our summit window. It's been the adventure I hoped it would be. This is a special place. Eric.
I am going to turn it over to Charlie here. Charlie is going to say a few words of wisdom...

Yeah, this is Charlie Hyde calling for Mountain Zone. We've had a great time. We are the last team from Alpine Ascents with Scott Darsney and Bill McCormick. They've done a great job with us up here. I just wanted to, on a personal note, say hi to my mom and Alison, Charlene, Nicola and the whole gang at [?] Cat. It's been a fabulous adventure and it's going great. Thanks for your love and support. Love, Charlie. We do hope to go up to the summit tomorrow and [unintelligible] have a really good day. That's it and I'll turn you over to Mike.

Mike: Hello, this is Michael Williams with Alpine Adventures. I'd like to second what Charlie just said. I really appreciate the efforts that Scott and Bill have put in for us. I think they've done a real good job here. From my perspective, we've had a lot of extremes: hot and cold. These seem to occur regularly on Denali and I don't mean over a course of 10 hours, maybe about 10 minutes. And we've had some very major challenges carrying weight—you know, food clothes, fuel, tents and so forth—from the Base Camp at about—what was it—7200ft up to 17,000ft. So this has provided quite a bit of challenge for me and we've got spectacular views. I just want to let all of you know that it's beautiful up here and it is the adventure of a lifetime. I again want to support Scott and Bill and the AAI group and everything they've done. So I'm going to turn it back to Scott.

Scott: Okay, thanks there Bill, [Mike] and Charlie. And I think we've just got some background noise from another channel. I'll talk a little bit more...boy, we just saw a snowboarder and two skiers launch off down the "Rescue Gully" down here...[transmission fails].

— Alpine Ascents Guide Scott Darsney, MountainZone.com Correspondent

EXPEDITION DISPATCHES