Mountain Madness team summits Mt. Logan!

We just talked to MM Guides Joe Stock and Tino Vil­lanue­va and got the news that they and team­mates Michael Thomas, Glenn Wil­son and Paul Mus­cat suc­cess­ful­ly climbed Mt. Logan yes­ter­day (June 15). At 19,545 feet, Logan is the high­est peak in Cana­da and the sec­ond high­est peak in North Amer­i­ca. A huge con­grat­u­la­tions from all of us in Seattle!

The satel­lite phone call came from high camp at 17,600′ (at 10 a.m. Seat­tle time) where every­one was rest­ing com­fort­ably and rel­ish­ing in their expe­ri­ence. Round trip time for the sum­mit climb was 15 hours (camp to camp). Joe, super excit­ed as always, said the final stretch of the route took them across a fan­tas­tic knife-edge ridge to the true sum­mit — a super fun and clas­sic fin­ish. Air temps were around zero, but the winds which have been present on the upper moun­tain the last few days, brought wind chills to at least ‑35F. It sound­ed like a full face mask and full high-alti­tude gear kind of day!

The weath­er fore­cast is call­ing for dimin­ish­ing winds and clear weath­er for the next 36 hrs which will enable them to descend per­haps as far as Camp 2 and the 10,000 ft lev­el. Their goal for now is to try and fly out on Sat­ur­day if Ulti­ma Thule is able to get in for a pick up on the Quinti­no Sel­la Glacier.

Joe said they’ve only seen 3 groups on the moun­tain all month, and only spo­ken to 1 group in per­son (a small Nor­weigian crew who left a week ago). As expect­ed, Logan has lived up to its rep­u­ta­tion of a true wilder­ness, high-alti­tude climb, and one that demands a high-lev­el of com­mitt­ment and per­se­ver­ance. Our 2011 team has done a remark­able job — con­grat­u­la­tions to them again on this amaz­ing climb!

Please stay tuned for some final blog posts as they descend and make their way back to Anchor­age. We are excit­ed to see and pass on pho­tos of this amaz­ing part of the world. All the best from us at MM!