Denali Update 2

Posted on May 25, 2010

Tuesday 25  May

All still absolutely amazing. The weather still great so far and the views incredible. I have some awesome pictures. It is all going too well to be believed so far. We climbed up quite a long way today to leave a cache and we came back down to camp 3. This climb involved negotiating some fixed ropes at about 45 degrees carrying a pack. – great fun! We are having another rest day today before heading up to high camp tomorrow.

The temperatures are so variable – up to plus 15 in the daytime and minus 20 or so at night. Our only issues, quite unexpectedly, have been heat, sunburn and dehydration.

 We have been walking with a couple of Americans for a couple of days and for the daily blog update from one, see this website www.rob-lea.com

Weather permitting hoping to summit at the weekend.

Denali Update 1

Posted on May 23, 2010

Sunday 23 May. All good. At 14,000 feet (4,600 metres). Temp -10 at  11 pm.  Watching a storm further back down the valley crashing into camps 1 and 2, we are luckiliy at camp 3! Weather has been amazing so far (good!). Views unbelievably beautiful.  About 5 days from summit , but expecting a few days of snow so may have to sit it out.  Met up with 2 polish guys and 2 americans so walking together. Flight in tiny pane onto the mountain was truly amazing and scary, landing uphill on a glacier, looked like about to crash into the mountain. Ankle holding up OK at present.  Both Nick and I feeling really good.  Jon G.

ALASKA BABY!

Posted on May 16, 2010

As the title suggests – Team Boris has landed in Alaska!

Things we instantly noticed – 1) It doesn’t get dark! 2) The scale of the mountain ranges are out of this world 3) The ‘cars’ are all V8 monsters! (We met Tina from Exposure Alaska at the airport yesterday and she seems lovely. She has the most awesome car – its like a VW Transporter on steroids! (I want one!) 4) Its difficult to buy any ‘fresh’ food and we’ve had enough of fast food to last us a lifetime

So, we endured a mammoth travelling session yesterday, i steady 9 1/2 hours London – Houston we have a problem. Then a short 6 hour flight up to Anchorage. The last section on this flight was incredible. The views out of the window across the Rockies and Alaska mountain range were just breath taking and got Nick and I very excited!! Both our body clocks are a little messed up but after a huge 12 hour sleep last night we both feel fresh and ready to go. 

Today is going to be a busy day – we need to nip to an expedition shop in Anchorage to pick up our skis, skins, radios, map etc and few last minutes bits and bobs. Then a 2 hour drive up to Talkeetna. Here we have our briefing with the Denali National Park at 16:00 (collect our poo container). Then we hope to hop on board a little plane and endure the most exciting 45 minute flight of our lives as we head directly into the middle of Denali National Park. The planes fly right into the heart of the mountains and eventually comes into land on the Kahiltna glacier (yes on the glacier!)…we hop our unload our kit and the plane flys away!

I guess this is it for now – i have no idea when i can get my next blog up – but fingers crossed i will get some phone signal on various parts of the mountain and i can phone in a get an update put on. If not then, ill put something up when i’m back in about 20 days or so…

Toodle pip

Packing, kit, more packing, weighting kit, losing kit, saving weight, more packing….

Posted on May 14, 2010

Hurray! The time has finally come…the night before departure!!

Everyone knows the feeling of last minute packing – or packing for a big holiday?! Well this is a bit like that only on steroids! I am now at Nicks house and his entire kitchen, dining room, floors and ceilings are covered in his kit! Then you walk through into his living room and the floor is covered in all my kit – everywhere!!

   

This will be our last chance to pack our kit properly ready for the mountain and make sure we haven’t double up on anything and share out the group kit (tent, stove, ropes etc). We’ve also just double checked the stove and and few other bits and bobs.

As i explained before we have to carry everything and so here comes the dilemma. Nick is a member of the weight police and with his trusty weighing scales will be shaving off every last gram of weight – that includes cutting labels out of clothes and cutting around paracetamols. Where as i really cant be bothered with that! That doesn’t mean I’m going to take along the encyclopedia Britannica for some light reading but lets just be sensible here!!

I never realised just how sad i had become until recently when i have been getting some new kit from my sponsors and running to the front door to collect it from the postman! A couple of pices of kit worth a mention are the Leki Poles in the photo – finally Leki have made some poles with a ‘speed lock system’ - this makes life much much easier to adjust them when wearing gloves and in cold conditions. Also in the photo are the boots that we are wearing – the Millet Everests and the Sportiva Olypus Mons, these are the big boys of th boots world and both would be happy on Everest. Infact the Millets’ (the orange ones) have actually been to the top of Everest and also to the summit of Denali 2 years ago! On the left of the photo are the big down mitts that i will be wearing when we get high on the mountain.

So thats it, all the kit is together and packed away, we have just ordered in a massive Indian for this evening and a taxi for 5:30 tomorrow morning and we are off. Im not sure what happens from here on with regards to being able to update this blog but keep popping back and checking – im confident we can get some reports from high up on the mountain!

 Bye for now,  see you in a month!

Fitness & Training for Denali Expedition

Posted on May 13, 2010

Fitness and training for Denali?  What is required?  How fit do you need to be? What’s the best training?

Well – this is an interesting one because on April the 17^th a fractured my ankle (28 days before departure!) and had it put into cast for 2 weeks, leaving just under 2 weeks until departure once it came off….

Since the cast came off my ankle has been getting better everyday and now id put it at 95% better. But this means I have done very little fitness training for the past month….?!

Read more

Denali Expedition Pre-Departure Update!

Posted on May 12, 2010

Denali Expedition 2010 – ‘Team Boris’  

On May 15^th 2010 alongside my good friend Nick Hollis I fly to Alaska to begin our attempt on one of the harshest mountains on earth – Mt Denali. Traveling roped together for 3 weeks we will make our way higher and higher up the mountain until finally we reach high camp and launch our summit bid. Please read below a number of paragraphs covering all aspects of the trip from – What will I be wearing? How will we go to the toilet? Altitude sickness? What’s climbing Denali like? Entertainment? What will we eat and drink? Hope your enjoy the read! 

What is Denali?   

Mount Denali or McKinley (Also know as “The Great One”) is situated in the Denali National Park in Alaska. It is the highest mountain in North America, with a summit elevation of 6,194 m (20,320 feet) – about 6 times higher than Snowdon! Mount McKinley has a larger bulk and rise than Mount Everest, although the summit of Everest is higher at 8,848 m (29,029 feet).  The mountain is characterized by extremely cold weather. Temperatures as low as −60 °C (−75.5 °F) and windchills as low as −83 °C (−118.1 °F) have been recorded.

What’s climbing Denali going to be like? 

Denali is hard to describe – for some people it would be their worst nightmare. It’s very cold and from the minute go we are on snow and ice for 3 weeks. However to me this sounds like the most amazing adventure ever! When we set off Nick and myself will be roped together, this is in case one us falls into a crevasse and the other one can aid pulling them out – hopefully!  

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