The Ruth Gorge,   Denali NP   Alaska

The final touches are being painted on this expedition.  And thanks to our guys on the ground in Alaska, I haven't had to do that much. We have our ski plane, our food and domestic plane tickets.  I have replaced Old Yeller with Big Red, a -40 Marmot Cwn and the ramped up one month crash cardio course is underway.  Yes, it is the familiar late spring excursion.  And I couldn't be any more excited.  (Except I need some approach skis.  If anyone would like to loan me some with skins, that would be awesome. Ironically, my pair is somewhere in Kathmandu at the home of one Arnold Coster who never returned them to me from Mustagh Ata. But that is another story from my upcoming book, Father of Ice Mountains)

On March 22, I will join the newly formed team called JD's Raiders on a 10 day assault of Mt. Dickey, Mt. Barille and perhaps another if time permits.  I am excited to be returning to the most beautiful of places on this earth and joining my Denali partners in a full blown adventure in the land of ice and snow.

This is a pic of our first objective.  We will fly in via Talkeetna Air Taxi and have no contact with the outside world until our scheduled pickup date.  We then don skis, rope up and rig our sleds for the move into what will become a base camp.

John Davis, Neil Murphy and Lee Whitten have been gracious enough to extend their invitation to me despite originally declining.  We were slated to attempt Kiliminjaro this summer but that plan was thwarted by my girlfriend's changing work schedule.

This will be a more technical type of climb and less about altitude although the elevation on the glacier will be around 6000 feet.  Mt. Dickey is purported to be the largest granite wall in North America if you consider the part under the ice.

So stay tuned!  Thee will also be a forthcoming announcement from SFW regarding an appeal.