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Group Six Wrap-up Monday, July 3, 2000
Hi, this is Bill McCormick. Kind of a final wrap-up from Alpine Ascents International trip number six, year 2000. Half of the team are in the Fairview Inn, in Talkeetna, center of the known universe. Right now, rehydrating. Actually had a very long day — full day, good day — we slept on the lower Kahiltna Glacier and went to bed about 4am, woke up at 6am. The reason being for the short sleep was to be able to make the last five miles down the glacier when it was firm from the cold temperatures, the cool temperatures of the night, and get to Kahiltna Base before the bridges over the crevasses softened up, which we were successful in doing. Arrived back at Kahiltna Base about 11am. It was also a significant day. It was Base Camp Annie's last day on the mountain. Ten years she's been doing aircraft weather and scheduling from Kahiltna Base and she flew out today. Weather allowed us to also fly out today. We were preceded by Willi Prittie's group and Eric — they left. All in all, the weather gods definitely smiled on us. It was a warm day on the glacier. A lot of avalanches coming down all around, but of course we were in safe terrain. Now it's about 3am, at the Fairview Inn, the historic bar in downtown Talkeetna. Processing the exploits of our expedition, which in very many ways was quite a wonderful and, I'd guess you'd say — I don't know if the word is growthful experience — but besides the physical aspects and challenges of the whole climb, the interpersonal challenges that come along and as Paul Harvey always says on his newscast, 'Now, the rest of the story.' Of course, you never get the rest of the story on these dispatches, because they're pretty smiley-faced. But this was a very rich and rewarding, but challenging experience and right now I've got the Jones brothers here at the Fairview Inn, Luke and Southward, our associate guide Dave Bangert. We're tossing down a few and this has been a significant event for all of us. We walked out to the confluence of the rivers here a while ago, looked at the Alaska Range, saw Denali in the distance and it's a striking panorama from town here. You're looking out over the wilderness and to look up and see a high point that we were on just literally 24 hours, 36 hours ago and to kind of reflect on that while standing on the banks of this wilderness in the Arctic twilight, was pretty astounding. I guess that's about it for us and for you, you can get the rest of the story from friends and family and look forward to speaking to you on future expeditions. Thank you and good night.
— Bill McCormick, Alpine Ascents International, MountainZone.com Correspondent
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