Denali 08

Everyone- Here is an E-mail from Mark, who will be leading this Denali expedition!! Please spread it out to anyone you think might be interested. Remember, if you are interested, please let us know ASAP by filling out the registration and sending it into Mark. Start talking to your bosses to get June free. I'll be working Permissive TDY so hopefully no one will have to use leave, but there's not guarantee. Talk to you all soon- Rob

Ok everybody - let's do this!

Rob and I have started making plans for our next climb to continue to push our AF team to the top of the 7 Summits! We are really excited to have set some dates to climb the highest mountain in North America -Mt McKinley! (Known to the natives and a lot of climbers as "Denali"). There are a lot of details to be worked out for us as a team, so we're jumping into it full swing early enough to make this a monster success.

Climb dates are as follows: May 28th: Fly to Anchorage, AK. May 29th: NPS Orientation/Gear Prep. May 30th: Fly on to Denali base camp with Hudson Air. June 28th: Schedule your flight home from Anchorage.

The climb usually doesn't take 30 days, but this extra time helps to increase our chances of success. The weather is often bad, and we need to be flexible enough to wait it out. If we finish early we change our tickets and get back whenever we can.

We are looking for climbers who are motivated, fun to be with and have experience with roped glacier mountaineering. Preferably everyone on the team will have had some expedition training-- in other words, they've climbed a mountain where it was necessary to set and move camp more than once and practiced crevasse rescue.

This climb, as with our others in the past, will be a fundraiser for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. Our goal is for each climber to raise $7,000. $5,000 of this will go straight to the Fund and $2,000 will be for the climber to buy a flight to AK, our shuttle expenses, the climbing permit, the cost of our air taxi/bush pilot, food, and gear. We'll help you with pamphlets and fundraising ideas, but it will be up to each person who joins the climb to raise the $7k (this climb we'll be looking to corporations for help, so it shouldn't be hard to do at all!).

If you want to be part of the team go to http://www.nps.gov/dena/planyourvisit/registrationinfo.htm and read through the registration requirements. Read the National Park Service publication, Mountaineering - Denali National Park and Preserve, which covers search and rescue requirements, clean climbing requirements, high altitude medical problems, glacier hazards, and self-sufficiency. Then download the registration form, fill it out and mail it to me at: Mark Uberuaga, PSC Box 92, Kirtland AFB, NM 87117.

If you're not sure if you have enough of or the right experience, but you really want to go, don't judge yourself. Read the info, fill out the registration form and send it to us. We'll see what kind of interest we have and if and how we need to mitigate for less experience. Our team application is due to the park service by March 28th. I need your applications no later than March 15th, the sooner the better though, because there are a finite number of spots on the team!

Look forward to hearing from you,
Mark Uberuaga