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It has been a number of days sense we left the mountain, and I imagine everyone is just beginning the routine of our "off mountain" lives. I hope these photos remind everyone how beautiful of a setting Denali was during our brief adventure to the summit.

Thank you for following the blog as I know there were a number of family and friends wishing us well during the journey. We could not have gotten everyone to the summit without your support.

Congratulations to all the summiteers and I look forward to seeing in the mountains very soon.

Best,

Drew

Back to civilization.

The team made great time and must have been quite motivated to get off of the mountain last night. They rolled into base camp early this morning and flew out to Talkeetna this afternoon where the Mountain Trip van was waiting to bring them back to Anchorage. Right now they are all back in the big city eating dinner at one of the nicer restaurants in town, "Orso" and enjoying their first relaxing night off the mountain.

Congratulations to the entire team for a great effort and a very successful trip!

Coming on down.

They are on the way down to base camp right now, and will probably travel thru most of the night. It's a long way down, but they are pretty motivated to come on home and take showers. They'll stop for a few hours at each camp to pick up any gear they left behind, brew up some tea, and keep on moving down to base camp. If all goes to plan, they'll be there tomorrow morning.

The top of Denali!!

The whole team summitted today!!! They got off to a slow start on this trip, but they had great weather when they needed it and everybody reached the summit this afternoon. They left at about 10 am this morning, and are rolling back into camp at just before 10 pm tonight. Drew said it was a beautiful day all day today.

Congratulations to everybody on the team, they stuck in there and worked hard and had a spectacular summit.

Listen to their call from the top of Denali, they are all pretty excited to be there and on a great day.

High Camp! 17,200 ft

They moved up to High Camp today!! Drew said it was one of the nicest days he's ever had on Denali. The weather was spectacular and everybody was feeling strong on one of the hardest days of the trip. The climb up the fixed lines up to the ridge which takes them up to 17,200 ft is the most spectacular section of the entire W. Buttress climb (until you reach the summit of course).

It sounds like they are having a pretty good time up there, listen to their evening call.

Rest Day!

Monday was a rest day for the crew. They slept in late, ate a big breakfast and enjoyed another beautiful sunny day on the mountain. They are prepared and rested a bit now for the big move up to high camp. They hope to move up to high camp on Tuesday morning if this great weather continues.

Here's the evening call from the crew.

Another great day!

They are finally getting some beautiful weather up on Denali and our team is putting it to good use. They carried a load of gear up to 16,400 ft today, climbing some of the steepest terrain of the West Buttress route. Again, they all did great today, but it is a pretty hard day and climbing at these altitudes is physically demanding. They are planning a rest day tomorrow to acclimate a bit more and be ready to make the move up to high camp at over 17,000 ft in just a few days.

Apparently there was some confusion about what day was Father's Day, so they wanted to make sure they got it covered today... Here's their recording from Camp 3 this evening.