Denali West Buttress: 5/11 Passey, 5/12 Postle

AMS Guide Mark Postle just phoned in from 14,200' camp.   Today the AMS teams at 14,200' are having a wall building party as they are expecting a foot of snow and up to 45 mph winds there tonight and tomorrow morning.  His team and Todd Passey's May 11 small team are all just fine and are awaiting their opportunity to climb higher. 14,200' is a pleasant place to rest, acclimatize, socialize, eat, hydrate and fine tune your technical skills for higher on the mountain.

Older photo of 14,200' basin camp, trail on left is route to the base of the fixed lines, skyline ridge is area of 17,200 high camp.

AMS team building proper snow walls.  A lost art! Photo: Brian Okonek

This gives you an idea of what it looks like to build camp and snow walls in a wind and snow storm. Can you see the next campsite? Photo: Brian Okonek