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kunlun_shan
Mountain climber
SF, CA
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May 26, 2016 - 07:34pm PT
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Paul, that FAA cam link is excellent. Goes down into Canada even. TFPU!
nah000, love the biking in deep slush photo. Hardcore.
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nah000
climber
no/w/here
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May 26, 2016 - 08:10pm PT
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while it's a little early to know for certain, it looks like they continue to be holed up on the same ridge... since this is now the end of week 2, here's the synopsis to date:
week 1: 80ish miles total with 27ish of that flying over two days and the other 53ish on the ground hiking mostly during the other five days. they made it to and found their first food cache on day 4.
week 2: 19ish miles total with all of that on the ground over three days. the other four days were spent pinned down by weather and/or resting. they found a food stocked cabin along the iditarod trail on day 8.
edit to add: Gavin just posted: "Grounded again. No sun at all today but forecast looking much better. Maybe after 4 nights @ high camp we'll finally get a shot! Spirits high, stomachs empty." so hopefully the next few days are good ones for them, as it's looking like they've got a forecasted four day window for mostly sunny weather and increased day time temps at the moment...
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F
climber
away from the ground
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May 26, 2016 - 09:45pm PT
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Weather is super splitter right now in the valley. (Matnuska Valley anyway) Woot. Might be a productive weekend for mountain recreationalists in AK. Send it dudes.
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nah000
climber
no/w/here
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May 27, 2016 - 11:05pm PT
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looks like they are done for the day...
day 15: after finally getting a sunny day, they took off flying from the ridge they've been on for the last few days, but unfortunately it doesn't look like they found much in the way of thermals and they only got in about threeish miles during what looks to have been mostly a sledder back down to valley bottom... they then hiked for about sixish miles first back up to the top of a knob, back down into a small valley and then back up onto another ridge. Gavin posted before they started flying: "Game on! Sun is out, we are out of food. 52 miles to next cache. High pressure flight!" so looks like they still have a lot of ground to cover before their next cache, because unfortunately, as the crow flies, they've only travelled around 5ish miles today...
good news is they've got another two days of good forecast ahead of them... bad news is possible high winds three days from now and then another low pressure system moving in after that... so. they're definitely up against it a bit... maybe they'll have to do a little dirtbag helicopter [ie. paraglider] caribou hunting...
edit: spoke a little too soon... they're burning the almost midnight oil and are back in the air for another flight that started around 10:40pm ak time... and now look to have made it another 3ish miles during two short flights before landing just after 11:00pm most of the way towards the dillinger river valley...
and a final next day edit to the last edit: they got in one last sledder flight at 12:30 in the morning last night for another two miles which landed them back down deep in the dillinger river valley... all in all a 10000 foot elevation gain on foot day [according to gavin], with about eightish miles in the air and sevenish miles on the ground in order to make it about tenish miles as the crow flies... so all round a scrappy, high energy expending day... hope they can find food, because this kind of travel with food would be exhausting... without it, i'm assuming they are going to be entering death march territory pretty soon, if they haven't already...
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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May 28, 2016 - 05:23pm PT
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I assume they've got their hunting rifles with them. No?
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nah000
climber
no/w/here
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May 28, 2016 - 09:25pm PT
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no rifles, that either of them have mentioned...
Dave mentioned having a large calibre hand gun, but that is all that i've seen them mention as far as firearms go...
Gavin has a good write up on his blog about many of the preparations that he did for this traverse and it is a very good read...
he mentions why hunting would be a poor plan to rely on for food and also explains why he actually bought a cheapish [as if there is such a thing] helicopter for his brother-in-law, who is an alaskan bush pilot, in order to make this trip happen!! after reading that blog posting, and seeing the level of preparation that the two of them have given to this project, i'm starting to see that my suspecting they were bailing during week two was sorely misunderstanding of the level of investment and therefore commitment that they both must have to this project...
which is currently being borne out by their continuing to hike/fly while they [apparently] have no food and are still 30-35 miles, as the crow flies and as of right nowish, from their next cache... and when they have to have in the back of their minds, that their best day in over two weeks resulted in only about 20 miles worth of progress [and that was one of only two days where they were able to make significantly more than 10 miles worth of progress in a single day]...
basically, given all of the above, that these guys are carrying packs in the 50-60lb range and have continued to push on while post-holing through snow and bushwhacking through alaskan brush in order to average a little over seven miles of progress per day, shows that these dudes have gone into full on beast mode in order to keep making this thing continue to happen...
given the commitment that we are witnessing, hopefully they are both watching their own backs, as i'd hate to see this go full franklin expedition, in order that one of them can make it through to the other side... :)
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nah000
climber
no/w/here
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May 28, 2016 - 10:24pm PT
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looks like another day is done...
day 16: after hiking to gain the ridge for a couplish miles, they took off flying and got nice flights that lasted about 10ish miles in the air... they landed high and then hiked for another couplish miles before taking a sledder for threeish miles back down into the big salmon fork "valley"... in total made it about ninish miles as the crow flies.
but best part it is it looks like spirits are high and stomachs were, for a moment at least, a little fuller, as Gavin wrote: "Maybe slowest vol biv in history but today was RAD! Totally on looked like big day but shut down, landed high, cool adventure on foot, awesome evening flight! Ran into bear hunting camp this am, they gave us HUGE breakfast and snacks. We're going to get to that damn cache!"
saweet! forecast continues to look good for tomorrow and now tuesday, but with a continued potential higher wind event forecasted for monday...
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thebravecowboy
climber
The Good Places
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May 28, 2016 - 11:02pm PT
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true adventure radness!
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john hansen
climber
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May 28, 2016 - 11:32pm PT
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" Um , I get by with a little help from my friends"
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nah000
climber
no/w/here
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May 29, 2016 - 09:50pm PT
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day 17: another day humping it out on the ground... twelvish miles over the course of a little over ten hours has them making it through to pingston creek... didn't appear to be any attempts to gain any highpoints in order to fly, as they stayed down low all day.
since the weather finally broke three days ago, and they were able to leave the ridge they were hunkered down on, they've managed to make it about 28 of the 45ish miles [as the crow flies] that it is going to take for them to make it to their next cache...
so based on how much ground they've been able to cover during the last three days, they've still got probably at least two days until they can get to their next food drop unless they can get into the air or find some more amicable hiking terrain... and both of those are currently, given the still forecasted higher winds for tomorrow and the what appears to be tricky terrain lying between them and their cache, looking to be on the longer odds end of things...
hope i'm wrong, as even with the good breakfast and snacks a day and a half ago, i'm sure those boys are hungry right about now.
edit to add: here's Gavin's synopsis of the day: "Long death march thru the most beautiful terrain I've ever seen. But we are completely wiped out. Nuking wind, unflyable. Something has to give."
hmmm... given what they've been through already, how much food they've apparently had over the last while and now the forecast which has even higher winds predicted for tomorrow and then rain on wed through friday before more high winds for three more days again after the rain, things have got to be at least a bit dire... and that's not mentioning that their next leg, due, in part i presume, to the no landing in the national parks rule, has 125 miles, as the crow flies, between food caches that only have around five days of food in them [according to G's blog]... while i mistakenly bet against them once, so won't do that again, they definitely need to start catching more breaks than a good breakfast and some snacks... can't imagine all of the tough hiking they are doing... you know when they are averaging just a little over a mile an hour over a full day of hiking that the terrain they are having to deal with is, shall we say, not ideal...
here's hoping the tide turns for them and they get a real good long distance flight soon... regardless, assuming that by slog or by fly, that they do make this next cache, given the no landing in the national parks and the toughness of the hiking so far, i'm assuming that a real big flight is probably the only realistic way that they can make the denali national park leg of this adventure... or at least the only way that won't mean adding ranger rick to their list of potential hazards...
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nah000
climber
no/w/here
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May 30, 2016 - 10:48pm PT
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day 18: not sure whether or not they'll get one more sledder down into the tonzona river valley before they call it a night, but here's what they've been up to so far... from Gavin's facebook it sounds like the wind storm hit a little earlier than forecasted with the strongest winds of the trip so far, at speeds of up to 50mph on the ground, last night... about this, G wrote: "Sorry Red Bull, the XAlps is PlayStation compared to this. Gotta press on, where's my tent?"
they started later this morning by hiking for six hours and gained a ridge after hiking a total of about sixish miles... after hanging on the ridge for a bit, probably to wait for favourable flying conditions, they took a quick 20 minute, threeish mile ridge hopper of a flight that gained them the next ridge over, where, after hiking another mile, they are currently at... this puts them about nine miles, as the crow flies, from their next cache, so if all goes well they'll hopefully make it to some more food tomorrow.
which is good because according to the forecast [which has been impressively correct through much of their trip so far] after one more decent day, the weather is headed back into the tank with likely 2-3 days of cloud and rain followed by one day of reprieve and then another threeish more days of high winds...
oh well, tomorrow's challenges... i'm sure their only focus right about now is getting to that next cache...
edit to add: looks like they'll be camping up high for the night, as Gavin just posted his evening synposis for the day: "Progress today. Wind cranked, alders bashed, rivers were walked and in a brief lull we flew a few miles, landed backwards at warp speed. But we're closer!"
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nah000
climber
no/w/here
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May 31, 2016 - 10:48pm PT
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day 19: after starting the day with a ridge top twoish mile hike, d + g got to flying... after a short mile long flight, they touched down and then scrambled under a mile back up to ridge top before taking off again in order to cross, as gavin called it yesterday, the massive tonzona river. dave found a bit of lift that gavin didn't find and so was able to fly high across the valley and land about 800' above the valley floor in a flight that took him around eight miles... gavin looks to have been lucky to have just crossed the river in what appears to have been a fourish mile sledder.
but after hiking for threeish miles gavin was able to take off again and in what i'm assuming is the flight that he referred to in his post as "the most magnificent flight of my life" he was able to gain a little over 1500' of elevation in a short mile long flight and top land on the knob where their cache was at... after a quick twoish mile flight north towards the ridge that dave had gained, gavin scrambled another mile back up a gully to the ridge in order to join back up with dave who had scrambled a couple miles himself after his flight. after hiking for another mile on ridge top, they took off flying and were both able to gain almost 3000' before they began to make a beeline in the direction of the denali park border. here, threeish miles into what was presumably their last flight of the day, both their beacons mysteriously stopped transmitting...
Gavin summed the day up like this: "We made it! Short flights and hard ground game, but then the most magnificent flight of my life to top land the cache. HUGE mountains! Just incredible. Food!!"
i'm sure the food they are eating tonight is some of the best they've ever tasted.
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nah000
climber
no/w/here
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thanks treez...
day 20: turns out, what at the time appeared to be possible shenanigans yesterday evening, were quite likely not, as they are still just outside the national park.
and so it looks like after their gps' shut off yesterday they flew another couple miles heading north before settling in for the night. this leaves them, after a short half mile hike this afternoon, appearing to have holed up close to a ridge only about two miles from the denali national park border.
i say holed up because based on the weather forecast, it's likely socked in and possibly raining this evening... and there are three more days to follow that are likely going to have similar socked in and raining themes... with those three then being followed by another two or three days that are currently forecasted to have around 60cm of snowfall dump at 1075m... [they are currently at 1250m]
at least they've got food... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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F
climber
away from the ground
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Saw a Paraglider killing it in the thermals over the Talkeetna mountains a few days ago when we were (gasp!) climbing. You can see him at 25 seconds in the video. Watched him fly probably 5 miles in a short time. Catching thermals over Didilkama and traveling to the west. Made me wonder about Gavin and Dave's progress. Thanks for the update.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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nah000
climber
no/w/here
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cool F... good to see at least one person on this board out climbing... :)
day 21: well, it's impossible for a mere keyboard warrior to know for sure what's up, as there have been no updates to either facebook or to their gps tracking... and kind of strangely the last few days of posts also appear to have been deleted from Gavin's facebook... so... either it's all random chaotic and coincidental; they're dropping off the radar for the time being and for whatever reason; or most likely they're just hunkered down due to being hit by somewhere around 1.5cm of rain today...
assuming the latter is the case and due to our being at the end of the week again, here's an update of the weekly summaries so far:
week 1: 80ish miles total with 27ish of that flying over two days and the other 53ish on the ground hiking mostly during the other five days. they made it to and found their first food cache on day 4.
week 2: 19ish miles total with all of that on the ground over three days. the other four days were spent pinned down by weather and/or resting. they found a food stocked cabin along the iditarod trail on day 8.
week 3: 72ish miles total. during four days hik/fly-ing and one day completely on the ground they covered about 38 miles in the air and another 34 on the ground. they spent two more days likely grounded due to weather, but received some food from hunters on day 16 and made it to their second cache on day 19.
total to date: 171ish miles with 65ish of those in the air and the other 106ish on the ground. this was comprised of six days with some flying and some hiking, nine days solely hiking and the other six either grounded or resting.
latest forecast is calling for one more day of rain, before two possibly decent days, followed by two with snow... hopefully they brought a book or two...
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ryankelly
Trad climber
Bhumi
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thanks for posting this.
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Alex Baker
climber
Portland
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I like these distilled updates, thanks.
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nah000
climber
no/w/here
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^^^^ my pleasure gents.
day 22: the conjecture over the last while has been correct. they've now spent three days holed up just outside the park boundary, sitting out weather, waiting for a shot at clearing the whole park in one go [about 120 miles as the crow flies]. Gavin wrote: Once again hunkered down in bad weather. 2" of snow last night after 24 hours of straight rain. Waiting for BIG day to send it over Denali Nat Park!
tomorrow's forecast is looking better but there's still a fair bit of cloud forecasted for the morning, so my guess would be it's not necessarily looking like the best day for them to be going after the whole enchilada... but, we'll see soon enough what actually comes to fruition... if they don't go for it, they'll probably have to hole up for at least three more days, as there is still snow forecasted during the two days after tomorrow [on the bright side the amount of snow forecasted is down to about 8" instead of the 24" that was being forecasted a couple days ago]...
while they wait we'll fill this interlude with a little more info regarding the adkins/dial/tobin mountain bike/pack raft/hiking boot crossing of the alaska range in 1996...
a friend sent me a copy of the nat geo article and while it's unfortunate that we don't have a "youtube" for magazine articles just yet [so that content creators can both opt into or out of, as well as be compensated for, having their work posted online] it's more important to me, when there is no money being made or lost, that people see this info, than it being relegated to a dust bin due to our specific methods not having caught up to our generalized means just yet [but if any copyright holders want this taken down, just fire me an email, and i'll delete]...
this shouldn't be relegated to a dust bin, because the trip looks to have been fUcking epic... what a bunch of rock stars... or at least unstoppable masochists... anyway without further ado:
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nah000
climber
no/w/here
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day 23: gone fishin'... quite seriously! they flew down to a lake, Dave caught four graylings and then they built a grill with talus rocks and cooked 'em up...
day 24: no updates, but forecast has been for cloud, rain and snow, so most likely they're still waiting out this current spell of shIt weather... which there looks to be one more day of on monday and then finally a spell of good weather [except for more cloud/rain/snow forecasted for wednesday and highish winds on friday evening and all day saturday]
hopefully their patience is rewarded and they catch a whopper, right across the park, sometime this next week...
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Ottawa Doug
Social climber
Ottawa, Canada
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Keep at it guys. This is one amazing story.
Doug
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