Welcome to the dispatch page for Mountain Trip's May 31, 2009 Denali expedition!

In the far north lies one of the most magnificent ranges of mountains in the world. The Alaska Range stretches 400 miles across southcentral Alaska. It is a wild place, covered in glaciers and punctuated by rugged peaks. The crown of the range is Denali, at 20,320 feet (6194 m), the highest peak in North America. Located so close to the Arctic circle, Denali can present some of the most challenging and rugged conditions of any mountain on earth.

Each year a relatively few climbers from around the world migrate to test themselves on the slopes of Denali. Mountain Trip has been assisting these climbers achieve their Denali dreams since 1976. We love what we do and are happy to help provide you a taste of what these climbers are experiencing by updating their progress in this blog. Following the expedition, we will post numerous photos from the expedition, so please keep checking in.

On May 31, 2009, a small team of climbers will arrive in Anchorage. They will be accompanied by three Mountain Trip guides:

Dave Staeheli from Palmer, Alaska
Jacob Schmitz from Bend, Oregon
Sean McManamy from

Let's meet the climbers!

Dean Albrecht from Canada
Rod Hogg from the UK
Teresa Gergen from the US
Greg Stephens from the US
Andrew Horton from the UK
Sietse Berghuis from Holland
Emanoel Rizea from the US
Annie Doyle from New Zealand
Trevor Jones from the US

We encourage you to follow the team's progress. There is an option at right to "follow" this blog, which is a convenient way to keep up with the team. Please post comments for the climbers, but realize that we cannot always get those messages to your climber in a timely fashion, due to the challenges of communicating from the Alaska Range.

Lastly, keep in mind that no news is good news. We will do our best to post each day, but many things could conspire to prevent this from happening. Feel free to contact our office with any questions or concerns and enjoy the posts!