Following is a series of dispatches received via satellite phone throughout the expedition:

Dispatch 1, May 8: All team members of the first Denali expedition were successfully flown onto the Kahiltna Glacier, thanks to calm, sunny weather!

Dispatch 2, May 9: The first Denali expedition is well underway! The team made it to their first camp at 8,000 feet, after one long push from base camp. Perfect weather for most of the day provided sweeping views of the entire range. A minor snow storm passed over at the end of the day, just as the climbers reached camp.

The team picked up a hitch-hiker along the way: a little bird that had decided it was too exhausted to fly caught a ride up the mountain on one of the team sleds. Throughout the day, the bird took turns riding on different backpacks and sleds, and eventually gathered enough strength to fly on its own.

After a long and successful first day of climbing, everyone was ready to sit back in camp and eat a hearty dinner of burritos!

Dispatch 3, May 11: The climbers are well into their second day of ascending the steeper part of the mountain. This morning they established a gear cache at 10,000 feet, and they are continuing on to the 11,000-foot camp today.

So far the weather has been cooperating, though some clouds are rolling in. The guides are expecting good weather today and tomorrow, with some possible storms coming in over the weekend.

The group is feeling strong, moving fast, and is in good spirits!

Dispatch 4, May 12: Today the team is holed up at the 10,000-foot camp due to stormy weather. The forecast for the next two or three days doesn't look positive; if the weather is bad tomorrow they'll take a rest day.

The next obstacle the climbers will have to face is Windy Corner, which is unusually icy this year. This slope leads to their second cache at 13,500 feet. The guides have decided to wait for good weather before attempting this.

All climbers are still feeling healthy and team morale is high, despite the bad weather.

Dispatch 5, May 16: Beautiful blue skies greeted the climbers from their camp at 14,200 feet this morning. Everyone welcomed the good weather, the first in the last few days of clouds and light snow. "You can see everything," AAI guide Dylan Taylor describes, "The sky is completely blue and all the clouds are undercast below us, with the tops of big peaks like Mt. Foraker showing."

Because of the stormy weather over the last few days, the 14,200-foot camp has been crowded for days with literally "hundreds of climbers" awaiting a window of better weather. Finally this morning weather permitted progression up the mountain, and many parties at Camp 3 began moving out.

The AAI team is taking a rest day today. They had a long day on Saturday putting in a cache at 13,500 feet, and yesterday moved to their current camp at 14,200 feet. Dylan reports, "We got to camp at 9:00 last night, then spent 3 hours digging and building walls because it was so windy, so we didn't get to sleep until midnight. We're pretty tired, but the rest day will help a lot."

Plans for tomorrow are yet to be decided. Depending on how everyone feels in the morning, there is the possibility they will take one more day to rest at Camp 3. If everyone feels healthy and well rested, the team will move up the mountain to make a third cache at 16,200 feet.

Dispatch 6, May 18: After two days of rest at Camp 3, the climbers are feeling well rested and ready to move up the mountain. With clear weather beckoning, the team plans to ascend to 16,200 feet today to put in their third cache.

Dispatch 7, May 19: With the third cache established successfully yesterday, the team is taking a final rest day today at their 14,200 camp. The forecast calls for clear skies through tomorrow, and the climbers hope to use that window to reach High Camp (17,200 feet), picking their cache at 16,200 feet along the way. This will be their last move before the summit bid. Depending on the weather, the group may try to summit on Saturday.

Dispatch 8, May 24: Andrew Wexler, off-duty AAI Guide, reported passing Dylan and other members of the first Denali Expedition on Friday shortly after he had summited via the West Buttress. Dylan's team was on their way to High Camp. The weather was good for the better part of the two days after Andrew saw them, and he reported hearing radio dispatches indicating that the team had summited successfully. Because of unsettled weather over the last few days, most teams have been pinned down at their camps, and so it is likely that the team has had to sit a day or two at their High Camp waiting for a window to descend back to 14,200, and the capacity to communicate with the outside world. We are eagerly awaiting the news!

Dispatch 9, May 24: Tim Connelly, lead guide of our second Denali Expedition, reported passing Dylan and his teammates just below the 14,200' camp yesterday. They were headed to 11,000 feet today and hopefully to basecamp by tomorrow (May 25). Tim said it sounded like everyone was able to summit! We are still awaiting the official word.

Dispatch 10, May 25: Dylan called from Talkeetna and everyone is off the mountain safe and sound after summiting on Sunday the 25th. Great news and congratulations to everyone. More details of the climb and descent will be posted as the team gets settled in and unpacked.

Final Dispatch, May 27: A Successful Summit!

With all team members safely down off the mountain and on their way back home, we've been able to get the details of their successful summit push from High Camp. We interviewed guide Dylan Taylor shortly after he had landed in Seattle after his flight from Anchorage.

Things were looking a bit grim for the group on Friday when they moved to High Camp. They had already spent six nights above 14,000 feet, and the weather forecast for the next few days was not looking good. Dylan recalls, "I wanted to push everyone to try to beat the weather, but we had to spend a lot of time building camp because of all the new snow and the potential storms ahead." Saturday procurred a blizzard, and the group built up their camp walls even more because the forecast called for high winds that afternoon. The group spent the day in their tents out of the wind, waiting. Dylan remembers, "I was worried we were going to have bad weather for a long time, but at 5 am on Sunday morning it suddenly became calm and my tent stopped shaking. It soon became windy again, but by 7 am it seemed to have calmed down for good. I woke everyone up and we began getting ready to leave for the summit. At 11 am we just went for it, and left High Camp in a long line of people."

The group climbed all day through warm, foggy weather. "There was a lot of blue ice on the way to the summit," Dylan said, "it was definately nerve-wracking." Despite the ice, they reached the summit at 8:30 pm. "It was very gratifying to be up there. Everyone felt pretty good - one climber had a bad headache, but we only stayed on top for about 5 minutes and she felt much better when we descended." Dylan estimates that about 30 climbers summitted that day, which is part of the reason that they did not stay on the summit for very long, as there was not much room. "It was clear on top, but all we could see were the clouds below us - pretty beautiful," Dylan described for us, "It was also very cold on the summit."

The team descended back to High Camp by midnight and fell into sleep. They headed out the next day at 10 am and went all the way down to 11,000 feet, on the edge of incoming weather. On Tuesday the group completed the last stretch and reached Base Camp on the Kahiltna Glacier. They had to wait until skies cleared on Wednesday before flying out, bringing their epic climb to a close safely and successfully. Everyone here at AAI would like to extend our congratulations to everyone on this first Denali Expedition - what an accomplishment!