Christine Feret is off on the first female winter attempt on Denali
http://explorersweb.com/everest_k2/news.php?id=19129

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Winter-Mc ... 7514235359

Wow, good luck to both of them.

Thanks for sharing this. !!!! I'm curious to know how cold it will be for them. Anyone know?

Artur Testov recently became an American citizen, and they live now in Alaska.
http://www.artur-testov-climbalaska.com ... enali.html

curious....how is WINTER defined in ALASKA?

FortMental wrote:I sure hope they climb the right mountain! Who are these people? Quick! Get me a phone!


North America's higest summit, Denali (Mount McKinley) is a popular peak - but not in winter.
courtesy Christine Feret

That's hillarious! Is that Mt Hunter? Doh!

Unless I'm confused by the posts here, she is not the first women to attempt Denali, she would be the first for a winter summit. Dr Miri Ercolani was the first female to solo and summit in 1982. She came back and attempted a winter summit in 1984 and died on the mountain

Sorry, my mistake. It was a male in 1984 who died while attempting a winter summit. Not the forementioned female

Denali update - Christine and Artur are still at 8000 ft and have not decided whether to continue climbing today in spite of the winds. The daytime temperature is -25 F (-31.6C) and night lows fall to -40 F (-40C)
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Winter-Mc ... 7514235359

Interesting sled training! I think I like my tire a little better!

Facebook tells us that they are still holed up in a snow cave at 10,000 feet because of bad weather.

Too bad, sounds like the weather isn't on their side at the moment.

dynamokiev98 wrote:Guy who is climbing with her made 1st ever January (winter) summit of Denali..according to him they did not want to climb n Feb/March bc it would be too warm, and the worst thing that happened was smoking lipton tea because they ran out of tobacco..crazy Russians!

I met Artur last May at 14K camp. We ended up camping next to him & Christine. She was very talkative and nice. I spoke to Artur a few mornings. He mentioned his summit that January and of another attempt the following year from Wonder Lake. But due to extreme wind chill values that winter, they turned around at McGonagall Pass. The dude is amazing.
All I could manage was "Good Morning", "Thank You" and "How are you?" in Russian. Made em' smile.

A newspaper update today
http://www.adn.com/2010/03/06/1171581/a ... ummit.html
Apart from the "scarce daylight" thing (we have plenty of daylight at 61N now, 14 hours if you count nautical twilight or "first light"), the article seems to be a reasonable account.

That was an interesting newspaper article. I can imagine their frustration.
Here is another article on Denali winter ascents
http://old.risk.ru/eng/mount/reports/denali/index.html