Wally Berg

Safely Back in High Camp After 18hrs
Tuesday, June 30, 1998

Hear the Satellite Call from Denali

Hi Mountain Zone, it's Wally Berg calling you on the 30th from the 17,000 foot camp on the West Buttress of Denali. I wanted you to know that we have returned to our high camp safely. Yesterday's successful summit day was a long one. We got back to our tents about 2 am making that an 18 hour summit day for us. Extraordinary push from some very strong people, that's what climbing a mountain like this takes.

Rope Team [click to zoom] (photo: Darsney)

We were extremely blessed. As I tried to describe to you from the summit last night, we had a two hour window of just astoundingly clear and calm weather in which we ascended across the ridge to the summit and we spent a great deal of time at the top of North America just enjoying the view and the accomplishment. The descent, as is often the case in mountaineering, is the biggest and most demanding deal. We walked down into the clouds and some wind and we had to deal with the exhaustion of a long day as we descended. We got back to our tents last night in a somewhat spaced-out and tired state but everyone was very thrilled about their accomplishment. Some of the edge may have been off of it because of the exhaustion but that's what climbing a mountain like Denali takes. Anytime you climb on a big mountain, it ought to be a humbling experience, in my opinion, and certainly this was.

Whether you are successful or whether you go away without a summit, a big mountain like this always reminds you what effort it takes to even come here and try to function and climb and we did so successfully this time and safely. Now, we're just sort of savoring in a nice, calm, white snow at 17,000 feet, a nice afternoon here. We're savoring our accomplishment; we're eating a lot and we're getting ready to begin the traverse back across the West Buttress to the 16,000 foot camp and then down the Headwall to 14,000 feet in the evening hours. We won't climb past 14,000'. We'll take another day there, another night there, to rest and we'll take the rest of the descent from there. This will be probably my final, official dispatch from this team because I lose the ability to call once I go below 14,000'. I feel like we wrapped up our climb this year. We have a slow journey out but we hope to have that accomplished in just a couple, three days and then of course there is the wait down at the Kahiltna base. Maybe it'll be snowing and we'll have to wait a few days or maybe we'll fly the moment we walk into camp, you never know. Maybe a little wrap up from Talkeetna to let you know that we've left the mountain safely. For now, just know that all the members of the Alpine Ascent/Fantasy Ridge climb did reach the summit yesterday and are very happy and very safe at the 17,000 foot camp; eating a lot and getting ready to descend more.

— Wally Berg, Expedition Leader

EXPEDITION