Denali

Forewarning, this post is still a work in progress. I am a perfectionist, and I wanted these posts to be “perfectly finished” before I got them up. I’m going to add a fair amount more photos (especially to the last half of the blog) and I need to fix the images that aren’t displaying correctly but I am not going to have time to do that for a couple more months. Maybe by Christmas. 2025 UPDATE: Hopefully this summer, I took the PE exam this spring and am getting married this summer so I’ve been SUPER BUSY. I have not felt up to photo processing, but seeing folks on Denali this year has inspired me a bit. Perfection is less important than actually getting this posted, so they’re going up. I will notify folks on social media when I am done making updates, so maybe tune back in.

Denali is not a peak I dreamed of climbing, but since I started mountaineering it’s held my curiosity and I always figured I would give it a try someday. So here we go!

Note: though I’ve censored most of the swear words from previous blog posts, this one will not follow suite, I did more swearing per minute on this trip than during the previous 34 years of my life, This blog would be a poor representation of the trip if I did not include at least some of the language used. The guys I had for company were great but, at least for me, a lot of this trip fucking sucked. I think I’m getting old and soft, or maybe that’s just the space I was in for this trip. I’m satisfied with all the decisions we made as well as with the style in which we climbed (self-sufficiently).

The trip started on May 18th when I packed my gear into my 1996 Toyota Tacoma, made my thousandth stop by AMH, picked up Zach and his gear, and drove to Talkeetna to meet up with the rest of Team Aurora Sprinkles. We came upon our name during a brainstorming session (read: me texting increasingly-ridiculous suggestions); Stefan’s dog Aurora had recently died from cancer and the team name was decided. I got patches for us all, as well as Alaska state flag patches.

We spend the rest of the afternoon and the evening sorting and (in my case) repairing gear. I had been up at 2AM the previous night repairing my tent’s seam tape, which helps keep moisture from penetrating the rain fly. Around 1:45AM I discovered the patch job I made on the windows the previous year had begun to fail. Not wanting to bring any insufficient gear to fucking Denali I opted to swing by AMH and consult Rick. He recommended 2 products, one that would bond materials and one that would waterproof seams. I made the repairs on a table outside Stefan’s family’s historic cabin (I’m not sure how actually “historic” the cabin is, but it’s been there much longer than I’ve been alive).

We all got dinner in downtown Talkeetna, talked about how we didn’t want to miss Stefan’s upcoming wedding on June 15th, and went back to continue gear sorting/repairing. I tested Claire’s inreach mini, Quinn went out to the Fairview to drink a few beers, and we all eventually ended up around the fire with our bags packed. I went to bed after midnight, the rest of the boys stayed up for a few more hours drinking.

We woke up on Sunday the 19th, our scheduled departure day, and walked over to the historic National Parks Service building and had our mandatory meeting with the Parks Service rep Travis, who was very polite and seemed to appreciate our preparedness. He gave us a few tips for ascending the fixed lines and answered all of our questions. We left the meeting with 5 poop cans (“clean mountain canteens”, or “CMCs”) and headed back to Stefan’s cabin. We sorted out our frozen food (meat, cheese) and headed to Talkeetna Air Taxi. We weighed in our gear (quite overweight, but we were prepared) and waited a few hours to see if we would fly. Once we found out we wouldn’t fly that day, we retired to the cabin to continue the Talkeetna Hang and watched ‘Prey’ before falling asleep.

May 20th

On Monday I called TAT at 8AM sharp and they told us to be ready with our gear by 9:30. We were, and flew out shortly after, but not before I dropped my nice camera directly on its lens while standing on the tarmac. Fortunately only the UV filter cracked, but my expensive lens was now exposed. The flight into the Alaska Range was underwhelming, as the Range was mostly socked in with clouds. We landed at Base Camp, unable to see any of the surrounding high peaks. We moved our stuff away from the landing strip and I briefly lost my camera en route.  I exchanged our permission slip with the Base Camp Manager Gabby to get our 7 gallons of fuel and gave her some roma tomatoes and avocvados she had requested. Zach gave her some Drum tobacco and a single friendship rose…okay.  We buried our Base Camp cache action packer with 7 days of food for 5 people, roped up, and slowly skied down poorly-named Heartbreak Hill. Some unroped skiers zoomed by us, asking “is Denali this way?”  Obviously. We obviously should have been skiing unroped and without skins too, getting down Heartbreak hill as a team was a bit of a production. At my suggestion we had all 5 of us roped together; my logic was 1) the crevasses are the biggest on the lower Kahiltna and 2) the snow bridges are weakest during heat of the day (it’s around noon), so the more people on the rope team the better. We used 30m and 60m petzl rad lines

Crossing the lower Kahiltna sucked, the sun came out and we applied liberal amounts of sunscreen and the majority of us broke out our umbrellas to protect us from direct sun exposure. Not much to say, we hauled all of our stuff the requisite milage to Camp 1. It was heavy, our heaviest day. My sled was 108 pounds before fuel and my backpack was 73 pounds. We opted not to extend the process by double carrying the lower Kahiltna. Arriving in Camp 1 around 7something PM, we set up camp after 8PM. We found an old cook tent hole we were able to reuse, but unfortunately after committing to the spot we quickly determined the previous party to used the hole were fucking assholes, they had pissed all over half of it. We referred to this area as the Pisshole and vowed 1) not only to destroy the hole afterwards, but 2) dig a significantly-better cook area at our next camp.  The dehydrated burritos I had prepared were a good dinner, but we found the dehydrated rotisserie chicken did not rehydrate very effectively.  Speaking of which, the shitter situation was a work in progress.

THE SHITTALK

Shitting in the bucket (“CMC” “clean mountain canteen”) was one of my least favorite aspects of this trip; I have irritable bowels and usually shit 3-5 times a day; I’m used to it at this point. It took a while to make the process as comfortable as possible, so I’m going to get all the shittalk for the trip out in one go so the process can get proper appreciation. I had been given advice to bring a tarp for privacy and shelter from wind/snow, but after two days of usage I think all of us did not enjoy shitting under that tarp without having it supported in some way. Not only did it feel claustrophobic hunkering down under the tarp, but it trapped smells. To the point I’d crack the lid, then go pee at our neighborhood’s pisshole, then come back to shit. No urination in the shitbucket, obviously. The Parks Service is very insistent that everyone contaminate as little snow as possible.

Careful yet blind aim into the tiny bucket was required. We were also advised to bring pipe insulation for the bucket edge to make that part of the process a little more kind. It’s all necessarily tedious, as no one wants to get their hands shitty. We have soap and water, but it’s best not to have to get to that point and I foolishly brought half the hand sanitizer I said I’d bring. The shit buckets are not very big, maybe 12″ tall and 8-10″ wide; you could fit a gallon container of white gas in them but that doesn’t convert to very much shit storage space when you account for toilet paper and the fact that no one wants to press the whole thing down after they poop. It’s no one’s fault, this is just the situation. Eventually every time you shit you desperately start by shaking the bucket to try and settle the mass so you can get one more shit in without having to change the bag.

Every camp we visited we leveled-up our shitgame, the shitter itself should be designed for width and depth for maximum privacy. At Camp 3 we used our shitbuckets in the community pisshole, a half-spiral staircase dug 4-5′ downwards into the snow where our neighborhood continued our endless work deepening the increasingly-terrifying Piss Moulin. It probably was 15′ deep over the course of 2 horizontal feet. While pissing you could look around camp, only your head was visible. Shitting was less frustrating here than under a tarp or in the open. At camp 4, for the first few days we poached a guided pisshole that seemed to have some sort of “occupied” signal involving the use of a strategically-placed wand, but I could never quite figure it out. You kinda just learn to accept seeing people doing their business and look away. Eventually Zach became inspired in built an immensely deep shithole into which no person could see unless they were right up on the edge. It was a bit narrow, but damn.

True privacy.

…shitting in a bucket still fucking sucks.

Back to May 20th.

Anyway, back to the plot. At one point after we had turned the stoves off, Kris (with the best intentions) tried to set fire to the cook tent by attempting to light the white gas stove without knowledge of how to use it. There’s a proper way to start white gas stoves, the stove needs to burn A LITTLE bit of gas for a while until the jet the fuel squirts out of becomes hot enough to vaporize the white gas. If you try to light the stove like a jetboil, you’ll only light liquid gas which takes much longer to burn off than vaporized gas. This is a pretty common accident with white gas stoves and can often results in comical situations involving a giant fireball, with climbers frantically scrambling with reckless abandon to upheave the snow anchors of the cook tent. The moon rose over Hunter and sometime around 1:30AM we got to sleeping our first night in the Alaska Range.

May 21st

The next day our task was to set a cache up around 9,000-10,000′ elevation. Any extra food, fuel, and gear we wouldn’t need could be cached above us to lighten our loads on the following trip up. This was the general strategy on Denali; move half your weight toward the next camp, the following day move to the next camp, the third day retrieve your cache. You end up climbing the mountain twice, but it’s better than one awfully-heavy slog.

We had chocolate chip pancakes and bacon for breakfast and skinned up Ski Hill into a whiteout and around 9,000′ decided continuing upwards would not be beneficial, as the trail we were following was quickly becoming covered in snow.  We later found out we weren’t even on the right patch, the trail we followed meandered to the left when it could have simply gone straight. Digging a big hole around 9000 feet or so elevation, we made our cache and had a fun ski back down to camp in nice powder. The views would have been incredible…if we could see them. Alas we were socked in, a theme for this area below Kahiltna Pass. We passed a group of three heading struggling uphill (one guy hauling two sleds, one was his own and the other presumably belonging to the one member of their party not hauling a sled) and let them know the visibility would not improve and that our trail ran out around 9k. 

As we arrived back in camp, we heard a conversation on the radio between a solo climber stuck at 17,000′ without shelter and the Parks Service. NPS said they were “unable to assist at this time”. This is typical, rescue is not the responsibility of NPS; in Alaska the mountaineering culture allows climbers to be responsible for their chosen level of risk-taking. NPS asked the soloist if there were any other climbers at 17k. The climber reported one tent and NPS directed the soloist to ask that party for assistance. We also heard from Claire via her inreach that evening a different soloist had recently died falling down the Autobahn (the hazard above Camp 5 at 17k)…which we later assumed this dead climber was the owner of that solitary tent. We heard nothing more about the 17k soloist but I assume he used the deadman’s tent, thus continuing the circle of solo climbers using other people’s gear on their “solo”.

More insults concerning “solo” Denali climbing to follow. 

Dinner this evening was “bbq quesadillas”, but cooking the tortillas ended up being too much work and tonight’s cook added too much water to the chicken, so we mostly had bbq chicken soup featuring cheese and shredded tortillas. After dinner we set to making water, a relatively long process that requires a lot of snow and patience.

We had some difficulty getting the stoves to light, we weren’t sure if it was altitude, inadequate pressurizing, or some other issue. Stefan’s whisperlite was a bit old, but mine was brand new and still having the same issue. We managed to get the stoves burning hot eventually. The stoves usually need to be pumped up 30-40 times every half hour or so and unfortunately they don’t make much noise (we realized that’s why they’re named “Whisperlite”). I’m used to my XKG stove, which the general advice is not to bring due to the noise. I have learned to take comfort in that sound because it’s always been the sound of home in the mountains. The XKG is a lot beefier than the Whisperlights but they did their job well. We ran two stoves in tandem with each other with a disposable stove board beneath. I made it from a piece of thin plywood and tacked a piece of flat foam on one side and a “no parking” metal sign from Lowes on the other. This helps reflect the heat upwards and prevents the stoves from melting their way through the snow beneath them at an alarming rate, instead letting them melt at an annoying rate.

***insert tandem stove photos, stove board, etc***

May 22nd

The next day we were sick of being down low, stuck in clouds, humidity, and snow, and wanted to move camp higher. We decided to forego an official breakfast to expedite the day, buried a cache of poop, trash, and an extra rope at Camp 1 and skinned back up Ski Hill.  During a break a team of two passed us headed upwards.  Later on we passed them as they took a break. At the boys’ suggestion, I set a very slow pace. I was feeling good moving fast for a while, but at altitude the body needs to slow down. One breath per two steps was a good pace, as we got higher and on steep terrain sometimes it was one breath per step. We skied and skied and passed the previous day’s cache, noting the group of 3 from yesterday had made camp shortly after our trail ended.  Zach reminded us we needed a CMC and fuel, so we dug up part of our cache to retrieve those items. As we were digging and resting, the party of two caught up once again.  The lead climber on that two man rope team asked if we were Alaskans (he saw our patches), seemed to recognize me when I gave my name, and introduced himself as Clint.

“…Helender? Nice to meet you man!”

Of course I’d heard of Clint fucking Helender, what Alaskan climber hasn’t? He’s put up bold new lines all around the world, but I’m notoriously bad with faces and I’m not sure we’ve ever actually met. Social media makes actual social interactions extra weird. Nice place to make a new friend, he and his teammate (Mark Westman) skied ahead of us while we packed up. We passed them around Camp 2 (an often-skipped camp) at 9.5k or so and continued our endlesss ski inside the Great Kahiltna Golfball. Near 10,000′, I knew we needed to cut right and up towards Camp 3 (11,000′), but the packed trail I was following was covered by snow and I could no longer locate it even by stabbing the snow with my pole. We left a bunch of wands but were getting close to running out (a couple dozen out of 50 or so). I circled around to Clint’s party and asked if he knew the way. He seemed a bit skeptical and about as lost as I was. A third party who had been following us skied up to me and we all discussed where the hell we should go next while staring into the same giant golf ball. After a few minutes of discussion/delaying, no one had offered to break trail.  It was snowing and shitty and I was about to start skiing again based solely on a GPS track, when in the distance shapes quickly appeared and resolved into snowshoers descending from 11 camp.  We whooped in excitement and, encouraged, the 3rd party took the lead and started skinning uphill to our right. Clint’s and my party followed. Eventually the storm cleared a bit and we noticed 3 other snowshoers to our right climbing up the steepest part of the hill.

“Well that’s fucking dumb. Why are they taking the steepest possible route?”

While they cut an impressive silhouette, their efforts seemed rather pointless as we traversed up and to the left, to the far side and around the hill. A much less-steep path, which was our preference hauling heavy sleds with heavy packs. As we gained altitude we also gained visibility, we had heard from previous parties visibility improved with elevation and that 11k was significantly better than the previous 2 camps. 

We arrived at Camp 3 fairly exhausted, mainly due to the increased altitude and all the exertion from hauling our gear uphill. It felt like we were crawling into camp. Unfortunately, once we unclipped from our sleds and skis, took off our backpacks, and took a piss we could not simply set up the tents and sleep, we needed to prepare a cook tent and our tent platforms with walls. We also had to probe our campsite for crevasses, as they are super common here and are one of two reasons this camp is generally disliked.  After committing to a campsite, we found one covered crevasse near the exterior and decided that would be the back of Stefan’s tent, where no one will go anyway. 

With lessons learned from the Pisshole, Zach helped guide the design for a significantly-improved cook/hang tent, meanwhile Quinn and I prepared and leveled the tent platforms in an attempt to create Perfect Level with our skis.  Any sort of exertion at this altitude was exhausting, simply jumping a few times would make me lose my breath. Continued exertion would lead to dizziness and nausea, so we all took it easy and slow and were patient with each other.

During the construction of our tent platforms, we accidentally began encroaching upon a previous-party’s cache. We tried not to dig it up, but did have to dig towards it.  You don’t fuck with another person’s cache, they could be counting on it and they’re definitely coming back for it. Dinner was TACOS, which was the most hearty dinner I had prepared (16 tablespoons of butter).  The chicken still didn’t fully rehydrate and we discussed maybe boiling the chicken for a while to get it to soften up.  Side note, at some point on the early part of the trip one of the boys pooped out an undigested piece of chicken.

May 23rd

Finally able to rest and out of the soup down below Kahiltna Pass, the next day we took it easy. We slept in, had a nice fatty breakfast (hashed browns, smokies, bacon), and while Quinn and Zach slept/rested, Stefan Kris and I hiked up Motorcycle Hill, the first major obstacle after 11 camp. Kris decided to do a ski descent, which did not look very enjoyable as the snow was fairly wind-affected and shitty for skiing. He later attested these were indeed the conditions. Stefan and I merely hiked upwards in our crampons with nothing but a camera and/or water bottle in our backpacks. About halfway up Motorcycle Hill, we stopped to chat with some friendly Malaysian climbers who were moving absurdly-slowly up the hill. Only the middle member was hauling a sled and the last member of the rope team helped push the sled uphill. Very strange, most people have one sled per person. Their gear was…aged and well-used, but I grew up as a climber in Fairbanks where this quality of gear was standard. They told us they were planning on climbing the 7 highest peaks in the world and had already climbed a few. They also declared their intent to summit on May 26th, a mere 3 days away.

“…that’s…ambitious.” I said, though I really meant “you’re going to die up there.”  But everybody is doing their own thing on Denali and I kinda figured folks must know what they’re doing. Not my business, folks in that mindset aren’t going to listen to reason, everyone got the same briefing from NPS about not ascending too quickly due to risk of altitude sickness.  I guess they had a schedule to keep, the weather was really good for climbing and who knows how long it will last.

Stefan and I easily crossed a few obvious crevasses and found a good viewpoint to the north, below Squirrel Hill (named for an alleged squirrel who lived off cached food here decades ago). We decided we might as well also hike Squirrel Hill as well, since we were feeling strong. The hill was mostly a traverse and offered no visible crevasses to surmount and we hung out at “Lunch Rocks” at the top, observing the Polo Field. We hiked back down with no incident. I sharpened my crampon points in the sun while the others lounged around in the good weather: sun, with clouds and light snow occasionally passing through camp. That evening a soloist skied into camp and took up an empty campsite near our’s.  At this point I forget what dinners we ate, I think we had pancakes for dinner either this night or the next.

May 24th

This day in my journal I decided to describe the experience of waking up and getting out of bed for the day today, because the process was so intricate and tedious:

Daily grind:

At 8AM vibrating sensations on my wrist alert me to the fact I am waking up. In darkness, I press a button on my watch to deactivate the alarm. I feel around my face and remove my blindfold, which blocks the pernicious 24 hour Alaskan daylight in May. Mustering energy, I lay still, remove my earplugs, and begin to feel inside my sleeping bag for my phone. I disconnect it from the charging unit and stow it in my hoodie belly pocket along with baby wipes and camera batteries. I unzip my sleeping bag and grab my gortex bibs from the tent floor next to my sleeping pad. Getting out of my sleeping bag and removing my capeline leggings, I lay on my back as my legs find their way through the bib pants, finally rearing up on my shoulders to clear my waist and then secure the overalls over my shoulders. I pull on Kiro’s tag connected to zip up my wool sweater, kissing the tag a few times. My legs are back in the sleeping bag. I check my fairshare mug to make sure it hasn’t tipped in the night (it doesn’t seal perfectly), full of water and set atop one of my packing cubes next to my bag to protect it from freezing. I drink a few cups of water and dig through my sleeping bag to locate my vapor barrier socks, liner socks, and ski socks. I remove my booties and sleeping socks and put on the other 2 layers of socks in the order previously described, after first dumping some Gold Bond powder into the vapor barrier socks. I pull on my puffy pants and jacket, moving towards the tent door. I find my boots, shove my feet inside, and secure the clamps and straps. Standing, I look at the early morning light. It’s 8:20AM. 

——

The following day we all felt much better and skied down to our 9k cache. The descent took about half an hour, the ascent took many hours. We started relatively early in the morning, skiing down before the sun hit 11k. The ski back up to 11k was hard but my extensive training with a sled allowed me to essentially forget about the weight I pulled when it was a half-load.  It was not as hard as the day we arrived at 11k.  We once gain lounged for the rest of the day.  I spent time laying under my umbrella in the sun listening to podcasts and sharpening every point of my 12+ year old crampons that have never felt the touch of a file. Once the sun set behind the ridge above camp, we all returned from our naps and started up dinner. That evening the soloist next to our camp asked us if we had any extra cache bags, I said no we forgot ours in our Base Camp cache. I asked if he did the same.

“No, no base camp cache.”

“…bold choice.”

I didn’t intend to be so demeaning to fellow climbers, but it was challenging not to let condescension creep into my tone as the number of unprepared idiots relying on others was astounding. People climbing up in whiteouts. Folks taking the steepest line up a hill. There’s a trail, for the most part, and you want to be on that to be efficient. No base camp cache? What happens if you get back to base camp without food and get snowed in for a week? (Answer: NPS will allegedly confiscate everyone’s food and distribute it back out according to need). I’m used to assuming a certain level of competence of other climbers when in Alaskan mountains, but here that assumption was too generous. I really do not understand “soloing” Denali.  I’m using “quotes” because it’s only a solo in name.  Sure, if you’re in shape and can’t find partners, climbing Denali alone an option. But the idea that a person is “soloing” a route with fixed gear, a packed trail, scavenged campsites is…an embarrassingly-ill-fitting description of the activity. “Vulture” or “scavenger” is a much more apt way to describe their climbing style, and, while there’s nothing wrong with vulture alpinism, I can’t say the same about vulture siege mountaineering. Fix your own damn lines and break your own trail if you want to consider it a solo.

This evening Stefan pointed out our stove pumps were still having trouble. Ideally the white gas stove burn with hot, small, blue flames, but our stoves kept producing large red and yellow flames, which means not enough pressure in the fuel tank. Stefan spent part of the afternoon cleaning his stove, so it should be running as well as my new stove. We did some standard repair, opening the fuel pump to inspect the pump cups. With us we had 3 different generations of MSR’s winter fuel pumps, each with a slight difference. My old fuel pump (5+ years old) was somehow the most reliable, last year on the Old Snowy Basin trip my brand new fuel pump failed to work (I left it at home for this trip). Through our inspection we discovered the fuel cups (these retain air to pressurize the fuel tank) were not lubricated with mineral oil. Having never once lubricated a pump cup, I found this puzzling. All the repair kits come with mineral oil, Stefan said he had half a dozen. Thank fucking god. We disassembled a fuel pump, lubricated it, and the pump once again worked like new.

I was worried the stoves would be the downfall this trip, we had at least 3 pump cups in good condition. When we opened one up, the pump cup was torn and awful looking. We thought this was from dry usage, but it turns out it’s made of leather, not plastic, which allegedly lets it run in the winter better. Still looked ragged as fuck. I decided it would probably be best if we lubricated the pump cups daily, just to make sure we don’t destroy them with the amount of water we’re making each day (I had a 10L pot we would regularly empty). Eventually we found oiling once every other day was optimum.

May 25th

Today we decided to make an alpine start: 4AM wakeup call. My first experience of the day was to reject experience, it felt so stupid to wake up so early when it was so cold. I could not find a zipper thermometer before I left on this trip, but I can tell the temp was definitely negative.  We got moving in about an hour and the movement was fast and we didn’t overheat, I think I had a 45 pound pack and a 30 pound sled. Motorcycle Hill and Squirrel Hill were no problem (though that steep spot on Motorcycle Hill near the middle did suck), there was a good trail made of packed fresh snow. Just a week ago this was reportedly all blue glacier ice; lucky us. The Polo Field was relatively boring but a nice reprieve from hillclimbing, until we reached the headwall of Windy Corner. The sun hit us right at the top of the hill, we took layers off and I got my camera out. I had my water bottle in my jacket and accidentally dropped it when I stood up! Luckily for me it slid into a snowwell and stopped moving. The traverse around Windy Corner was uneventful but slightly annoying with the sleds. There’s a crevasse field immediately after the traverse, we negotiated it easily as we just followed the trail. We reached the cache site at 13k around noon and took a break before we dug the hole for our extra food, gear, and fuel. The digging was not easy, we were glad we brought the steel spade. We covered our cache in 1-2′ of snow, stabbed a wand with our cache tag in the middle, called it good.

There was a guide with some clients who arrived at the cache site when we were reading to move, we heard the guide tell them “backpacks will be getting heavier after this”, which I found funny (“they’re not heavy already?”)  The Polo Field and Windy Corner were a breeze to descend, no wind and no crevasses. Coming back down, my underneck got quite sunburned, the pink bandana I had over my neck seemed to block no sun at all. I was also crazy overheating on the way down, I had under armor top/bottoms on as well as a layer of capeline on my legs. This was great for moving at 0F, but not so much at 80F. The sun reflects off the surface of the snow back up at 90% efficiency, so we were literally getting cooked on both sides. I have always had trouble with heat, I’d often wonder why I did any mountaineering in April early on in my climbing career. The answer, of course, is to get moving around 2AM and be done moving (or high up enough it’s cold) by the afternoon.

We got back to camp and everyone napped/chilled until the regularly-scheduled cook tent hang time, definitely the best part of the day. A few of us had Crazy Creek chairs, a last minute purchase for me, which are simply foam pads with waterproof covering that cover the butt and lower back when sitting. Others sat on sleeping foam pads. We had dug benches around the perimeter of the tenthole, but we found we had dug the hole slightly too big for the cook tent (a mid we borrowed from Rick) so fresh snow could fall in and warm air could escape. Also we hadn’t dug it deeply enough to prevent the heat of the day from melting everything holy shit. The steps down became a dangerous slide and the floor was full of craters from slips and falls.

Sunday May 26th

Well, yesterday fucking sucked. Today, instead of waking up early, we decided to not give a fuck until the sun hit camp. It would wake us up anyway, the tent temperature rised 40+ degrees in a few minutes. We were all uninspired to ever alpine start again as yesterday was so cold compared with waking up a few hours later. The mountain seemed to encourage our laziness, it took a little over 3.5 hours from wakeup to moving out of camp. We slogged up towards 14,000′ with unrelenting sun beating down on us. I hated most of the day away, moving in the heat affected me worse than altitude ever did. We stopped at our 13k cache and dug up two clean poop cans (each with a can of white gas) as well as some food and continued our slog up to 14k. On the last major hill, we pulled to the side to allow a party of 3 to pass us. An additional party of 2 french folks followed in their wake before we could resume our upwards progress. The leader of their rope team went by without a word, however the second member bumped into my sled, causing it to overturn. Rather than doing literally anything to solve the problem he created, the Frenchman said “o sorry” and kept skiing. Fucking.  Asshole.

Quinn followed behind me and helped right my sled, though I could smell the white gas that had begun leaking from our fuel cans as soon as my sled flipped. Fuming not only due to the heat, we continued skiing and upon arriving at 14 camp found the Frenchman and his wife/daughter/other had taken the last campsite with previously-built snow walls. It wouldn’t have been useful to our two tent party, but out of spite I would have preferred to see him and his partner struggle to make a campsite for themselves.

Pissed off, we skied to the edge of camp, closest to the Headwall, and made the space ours. We spent hours carefully carving out a deep, deep cook tentsite with the help of the steel spade, a cook area that would hopefully hold up during the hot hours of the day. We did not spent much time making tent platforms, as we figured we could do that the next day and Perfect Level is such a tedious goal. We expected to spent upwards of 5 days at Camp 4, as time here is necessary to acclimatize to the higher elevations of the mountain. The day I left for Talkeetna Grant surprised me by telling me he waited 9 days at Camp 4 before moving on. This astounded me, I had not been in the mindset to wait around for over a week. My style of mountaineering has been take your shot, if you get spoiled by weather so be it. The mountain will always be there. We had food for 28 days, but at least I was not prepared to need it all.

Monday May 27th

Today was a day we could have rested entirely.  Instead, Kris Quinn and I skied down to our cache at 13k.  Zach and Stefan stayed in camp, as they were feeling the altitude.  It was a quick ski down to 13k, where we loaded everything into our backpacks and my sled.  We could have left some food bags for the other two to grab, but I really wanted to be looking forward and not backwards so I made a point to retrieve our entire cache.  The ski back to camp was exhausting due to the heat and heavy load, as well as my wicked underneck sunburn, but luckily the trip only took an hour or so.  I had no desire to move for the rest of the day, but Quinn and Kris decided to skin up the headwall a ways to get a ski descent.  Good for them!  My neck was sunburnt for the 3rd day in a row, I had foolishly cached my sun hat with its neck protection at 13k, mainly because I thought the hat looked stupid. I’m not wrong. I did wear it on the way back from the cache, I had decided I would rather look stupid than be burned even more.  I could feel my skin burning even though the neck protection of the hat on the ski back to camp, so I hid for the rest of the day and made water.  We discussed ideas, like heading up the West Buttress progressively higher each day to acclimatize.  Stefan was fairly nauseous, looked like shit, and spent the day in the tent, only making an appearance once during the dinner portion of hangtime to eat a small bit of food. His face was swollen and we were a bit worried for him, but the guidebooks said the first few days can be rough for some folks. Sometimes people need to descend to 13k for one night to get better.

Tuesday May 28th

A fateful day, but not for us.  Finally, we were no longer skiing and were climbing; I was so happy to stop using my tight ski boots and don my very comfortable, discontinued Koflach Arctis Expe double plastic boots.  It’s been about a decade since I used them regularly and they still performed magnificently. I brought two pairs of boots because I was concerned my ski boots would be too small with foot swelling at altitude, and the last thing I wanted was any sort of permanent damage to my feet.  Stefan was still feeling altitude sick, so he remained in camp as Kris, Quinn, Zach and I roped up and moved up the headwall towards the fixed lines.  Zach turned around after about 1,000′ elevation gain due to the altitude making him feel dizzy; I felt it too but it didn’t encumber me. No, the reason I turned around a few hundred feet later because I was so goddamn hot I couldn’t think or move; I was just angry. I tried to dress responsibly and wear a warm underlayer because I figured I should be prepared for cold up high, but I was mistaken in assuming one can “responsibly” dress on Denali.  The truth is you can be too hot or too cold, but never comfortable during the heat of the day.  I had to stop twice, once to remove my gaitors, and once to remove my capeline leg layer.  There was no way around it. The latter of course required I unrope, strip all my lower layers sans underwear and under armor leggings, and remove the leg layer.  Boots came off too!  I, of course, was up to cooking temperature at this point and still roasting despite delayering, so a few hundred vertical feet after stripping down I decided the mountain could go fuck itself today, turned around and hiked back down the headwall.  I had my blue neck buff doubled up over my neck, as well as a sun hoodie, but regardless I could still feel my neck burning for the 4th day in a row.  I hated that the two dangers of this trip, frostbite and sunburn, were separated by mere hours.

The entire time we were on the slope, a military plane was circling the mountain.  At first we thought it was there to pick up some military climbers we had seen descending the previous night.  However, after the 24th or 25th circle we figured something was happening up high.  Two fighter jets also buzzed the mountain, though they were at least a half mile away.

When I got back to camp, Stefan was still feeling awful.  I convinced him to take a Diamox pill, which I’d had prescribed by a doctor before the trip.  Diamox requires drinking a lot of water, which Stefan had been unable to do due to nausea.  He was able to power through though and drank water throughout the afternoon/evening.  He joined us in the cook tent to hang that night, though I doubt the Diamox had taken effect yet.

The nightly hang time in the cook tent was the glue that held this expedition together.  We all had our various ways to be comfy, some using their foam sleeping pads, others sporting Crazy Creek chairs.  Quinn and Kris had told me they’d be back by 9PM and wanted to see how high up the West Buttress they could climb above the fixed lines before they got tired.  They returned that evening famished and we had a glorious dinner complete with fully-rehydrated chicken.  The trick was to boil the chicken for 30 minutes.  They also returned with JUICY MOUNTAIN GOSSIP.  As entertainment can be hard to find on Denali, any sort of news about other people was automatically interesting, doubly-so if it was gruesome (sorry, it’s true).  While hiking above the fixed lines, Quinn and Kris were passed by two NPS Rangers who were “*sigh* on their way to rescue the Malaysians”.  Apparently the Malaysians were stuck up high and could not descend on their own.  The Rangers asked if Quinn and Kris were attempting to summit from 14k today. 

“Nope, we’re just acclimatizing.” 

“Good boys.”

That night around 10PM Kris mentioned a climber was just dragged into camp on a sled.  Scurrying out of our cook tent for a look, we saw the climber was sitting upright and deduced this wasn’t corpse retrieval.  We went back to our cook tent hang.  I think that party came down the rescue gully from 17k, where NPS has a 1,000′ rope cached for emergencies, because the next day we saw odd tracks down the gully.  Around the same time that evening we heard a helicopter flying around the mountain.  Peeking out of our cook tent, we spied it circling the summit a few times before landing at 14 camp, flying up to 17 camp, landing back at 14 camp, then taking off.  We assumed the climber who arrived via sled left on the helicopter.  We had more discussion of what to do at 14 camp, I suggested we all stop thinking about the summit and try to focus on having fun at this camp.  While this was a great suggestion it was hard, especially seeing all the guided groups coming down from 17 camp having successfully tagged the top.  Granted they had probably been there a week longer than us, but they all had the same tents and it made everyone antsy to see so many folks coming down after such a long spell of good weather.  Stefan suggested we not talk anymore about summitting and instead talk about literally anything else so we all (sans Quinn, who was sleeping) made DnD characters so we could have a game at some point in the trip.  My character was a half-elf half-gnome who’s mother was tragically turned into a garden gnome when….you know nevermind.  Zach’s character Brick McKinley was by far the most interesting and promising character.

Wednesday May 29th 

Today was the day Zach and I would ascend the fixed lines.  We woke up in a cloud, which was a drastic difference in weather from the pattern the mountain had been experiencing the last week and a half.  Without fail, the mornings would be clear and the afternoons would have waves of clouds with occasional snow.  I had an ominous feeling that we were witnessing the changing of seasons, from stable cold weather typical in May to the windy/snowy weather common in June.  SPOILER: I wasn’t wrong.

Stefan was feeling better, but not enough to move.  Kris was definitely feeling the altitude, his face was swollen and he was lethargic.  Quinn and Kris decided to rest in camp, their big mission of the day would be to visit the poop crevasse and dispose of our waste.  

Today felt like it would be a big day, but ultimately we took a long fucking time to do very fucking little.  In the morning we overheard one of the guides talking to their clients, “hey guys, water and breakfast is almost ready. But we’ve got coffee ready for you now.”
OMG *cringe* *puke* fuuuuuck you. No shame on those who decide to pay for a guide service, they certainly get to the top a lot more often than us private parties. But absolutely not my style, the idea of someone else doing my mountaineering responsibilities for money is so antithetical to my personality I have a visceral response. I accept it would be nice to have someone do all that daily grind shit for us, but not worth the price literally and egoistically. More power to those folks though, Denali is a business at heart. That’s what $10-15k gets you, in addition to the guides carrying group gear and meals and planning everything. However all guides require their clients to snowshoe up and down the mountain, which (besides the price tag) is a huge turn-off for me ever seeking out a guided expedition. The ski descent back to base camp was the on thing we could all look forward to, even if it ends up being relatively shitty.

We started towards the headwall in the early afternoon, I had removed my long-sleeved under armor top in favor of my wind/sun hoodie, a sunhat crammed under a mountaineering helmet, and shitload of sunscreen.  No gaitors or capeline leg layer for me today.  I was still uncomfortably hot, constantly stopping to open my leg vents and roll up my pant legs.  Our pace was about two breathes per step, a mind-numbingly boring pace, but was required to move efficiently.  Zach took the lead when we got close to the fixed lines, I put on my puffy jacket at Quinn’s recommendation but had to take it off a hundred feet later because I was dying of heat.  Fuuuck I hate being hot while moving.

We got to the fixed lines and attached ourselves, which meant one ascender and one carabiner on a sling above it.  Zach climbs steep ice for fun in his spare time and scurried up over the bergshrund without issue.  I foolishly crossed under the fixed line to better climb over the icy cliff and immediately regretted my decision when I had to cross back under the fixed line, which snagged on the poles and pickets attached to my backpack.  Our upward progress was slowed significantly by the two parties ahead of us moving roughly 2 seconds per step maximum pace.  Every time they reached a picket, the entire party had to stop for half a minute or so.  As there were 4 people spread across multiple pickets, this occured every minute or two.  I leaned back on the fixed line, my ascender taking some of my weight, and waited for the parties above to make literally any progress.  And continued to wait.  It took 2 hours to ascend the fixed lines, I’m confident I could have climbed them in 30 minutes if unencumbered.  All throughout this climb, the clouds came and went in waves, though never clearing entirely they did recede enough to see the rock walls around us on occasion.  At some point another asshole Frenchman, this time a soloist, began ascending the descent line.  I yelled at him to verify he knew he was ascending the dedicated descent line and he replied “yes, I move if there are descenders”.  Moving over to the descent line to get past the slow people crossed my mind, but I didn’t want to be a complete dickhead so I didn’t.

When we reached the top of the fixed lines and walked to the opposite side of the ridge,  Zach belayed me in.  There were numerous caches here, I had wondered if there would be enough snow to bury anything.  We were now on the West Buttress proper, and it was time to turn around.  We could have continued climbing, but as there was a storm incoming, the clouds were surrounding us, and folks were descending, we decided to get down.  There was a 3 person rope party slowly descending the ridge heading for the fixed descent line.  Depserately not wanting to be stuck behind slow climbers again, I quickly cramponed down and jumped ahead in the line.  Not caring what the waiting parties thought, I attached my ascender to the descent line and began moving downwards far faster than I had ascended.  Zach clipped into the descent line when our rope was taut and we began moving downwards before the other party was ready to descend.  I refused to body rappel, not only because I wasn’t comfortable with the technique but also I didn’t want to ruin multiple articles of expensive clothing from the rope friction.  I put my weight on my ascender and lowered myself; taking my weight off, I barely disengaged the ascender and moved it down a few feet.  I once again trusted my weight to the ascender as I walked down a few steps.  This process repeated itself for an hour.  Every time we reached a picket, I moved my ascender first and left my carabiner on a sling on the higher rope until my ascender was enganged.  It was slow, but this way I remained protected the entire descent.  Zach was impatient and wanted to descend faster, but luckily for me I couldn’t communicate with him more than “STOP!” and “CLIPPING!”

We arrived back at camp hungry and ready to chill.  I was began eating some of my famous beef jerky when a European guy came over and asked if we had a spare water bottle and/or any gear we wouldn’t mind selling/renting.  Like a prairie dog in a field, a voice chimed across camp as a head popped up from a poop silo: “I’ll sell my water bottle for $500!”

The European waves to dismiss this person and had began to share some mountain gossip about the Malaysians with me, clearly thinking we would commiserate about the situation.  “Sounds like there are two Malaysians stuck at 19,600′, waiting for rescue, one made it down last night. Apparently one of the two stuck up there is going to lose both legs and hands.”  We cringed at the thought, but weren’t that surprised.   Munching on more jerky, I looked up at the summit, currently clouded up. 

“Well that sucks for them.  Want some jerky?”

The European eyed me warily, seemingly looking for a different reaction. “No thanks.  I don’t see why NPS doesn’t just rescue them.  They’ve got a high-altitude helicopter.”

“Yeah, but that’s not really their business,” I said with a mouth full of jerky, “rescuing people who get themselves into trouble, that is.  It’s probably too windy up high for the helicopter.”

“But they’re dying up there and NPS is doing nothing.  This would never happen in the Alps.  ‘Home of the free’, indeed.

“I mean yeah, you’re free to kill yourself in the mountains here.  Seems like they pushed too high too fast, got sick, got stuck, now weather is bad.  The Rangers shouldn’t have to risk their lives because these folks made poor decisions.” Don’t come to our country and insult our climbing culture just because it’s different from the pampered climbing culture to which you’re accustomed.

Clearly believing I was the king of assholes, the European grumbled as he walked away looking for gear for rent/sale.  Other camp gossip said guides were abandoning high camp and NPS Rangers were urging everyone to evacuate, as there was a storm incoming that evening and conditions would be hellish at 17k.  Apparently only one tent remained.  The incoming storm didn’t hit for a few hours, but when it did we were already hunkered down.  Around 9PM we peeked our heads out of our cook tent and saw a large number of people on the headwall.  We checked back every 15 minutes or so and their progress was slow enough we assumed there was a rescue ongoing.  Even with my awesome camera, we couldn’t quite tell how many folks were in sleds, but there were at least a few.  By 10PM they were all off the headwall and the storm really hit, complete whiteout and a few inches of snow to come. I’ve heard horror stories of 4’+ feet of snow being dropped from a Denali storm.  On the bright side, Stefan was feeling much better by the evening, Zach had figured they might descend to 13k to acclimatize better, but given the forecast for the next few days we decided we should wait it out. 

Group moral was pretty low, as the weather forecast showed wind and snow for the next week without any 2 or 3 day windows to try and move to 17 camp.  I know weather can be fickle and you really only get 3 days of weather report with any kind of reliability, but the weather pattern had been so solid for the past 10 days, we knew it intimately because we’ve been in it. I’ve never lived outside for this long, you develop a relationship with the weather over time. The days of high pressure and clear skies during the day, cloudy and a bit windy/snowy at night, were over. This was the changing of the season to more stormy weather and we all felt it. We all went to bed fairly deflated.

Thursday May 30th

Today I woke up wanting to go home.  I hadn’t been this homesick since I was 17 and was questioning what the hell we were doing up here anymore.  I know, right? The mighty 34 year old mountaineer, brought down by homesickness. But it’s true, I had an awesome life back home and more than 2 weeks off from work, the though of going home was tempting. I was texting Claire via the inreach how much I hated being here pretty much every day. The boys were the best part of the trip, but they couldn’t make my neck less-sunburnt or the days less hot. Nor my sleeping bag less claustrophobic, nor the shitting experience any less frustrating. Really, frustration was the abiding emotion up there. I thought life would be so simple, I had to move or chill. But there’s so much involved between those two activities, I had multiple stuff sacks with my belongings but remembering where I put anything was impossible. Eventually I came up with a system that made sense, but it’s still a hassle to dig through various bags/layers to do literally anything besides whatever I was just doing. It was a lot more mentally taxing and I hadn’t expected this aspect of the trip, most of my mountaineering trips were overnighters with the occasional multiple -nighters. And I’m not going to relitigate the shitting situation, but goddamn.

The previous night’s discussion had left us all understanding there would probably be no summit opportunities in the next week, and the thought of hanging around 14 camp without any hope of good weather was extremely disheartening.  We had missed the good weather window for the season; had we flown in 4 days earlier we would have easily gotten to the top. We all remember 2023, when it rained literally every day of the summer. And 2022, where it rained every day of the second half of summer. The cost-benefit analysis of staying in camp for potentially 2 more weeks and not summiting, versus maybe summiting if we stuck it out, was weighing heavily on our minds. Also there’s the fact that for us, Denali isn’t necessarily a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It’s about 3 hours away from Anchorage by car and plane.

Angry at the sun, I decided I wouldn’t be leaving camp today.  I posted up in the cook tent and made water, Stefan and Zach joined and we played Set for a while.  Both still feeling the altitude, though doing better.  Kris and Quinn had gone off for another day of backcountry skiing.  Zach Stefan and I discussed the prospect of descending Friday, as none of us wanted to get stuck at 14k in a storm.  Let alone a week or so of storms. Windy Corner is hazardous enough to cross in good weather, it would be foolish to try and pass it during a storm. At some point in the afternoon, we heard a voice shouting for a dentist.  A weird request, I thought. Eventually we felt the decision had been made, a silent understanding in their air before one of us vocalized it. It was time to get back to our lives, there was more to life in this moment than waiting around to climb a mountain.

I remember the moment I knew my mind had changed. It was about 2PM and I was watching various parties don their heavy packs in the blistering sun, ready to ascend (in some cases BACK UP) the fixed lines to try for high camp. I literally couldn’t imagine doing the same, all motivation to continue was gone.

When Quinn and Kris returned to camp, we informed them we were planning on heading down the next day (Friday).  We stressed this decision didn’t need to include them, as they seemed like they were having a great time.  Personally I was done with the trip, I had a great life back in town I was excited to return to and every day of the trip involved a significant amount of misery from all the aspects of climbing unique to Denali, ending once we were done moving for the day.  The word “misery” appeared many, many times in my journal entries.  

The only time I could comfortably move was after the sun had set, and no one else on the team was interested in moving during those hours.  I don’t blame them, but also I do not share their ability to move comfortably during the sunny hours of the day.  Literally every second I spent in the sun was a second I spent hating life, and for now I was done with mountain life.  Fuck the summit, Fuck Denali, fuck being cold ever again: I wanted out.  As I more than 5 years older than most of the guys on this trip, for the entire trip my running gag was how I was 2 weeks from retirement, only here for one last gig.  I’ve been mountaineering for 12 years but this was a new experience entirely. I can get my head around multiple nights in the mountains, but I was not at the point mentally to spend multiple weeks hanging out.

Kris and Quinn decided they would stick it out at 14k for a few more days, try and get to high camp if even just for a visit.  I would have liked that for myself, but was too mentally done with the trip to actually care. I would say something broke in me, but that’s not true. I was certainly more jaded in general, realizing I didn’t have the patience to wait it out was more like discovering a deep truth of the world. Quinn and I walked over towards the NPS tent to scope out the weather board and encountered Clint walking the same way.  

“How’s it going Clint?”

“Dude, fuck this place.  I’m headed down.”

“Yeah this place fucking sucks, it’s way too goddamn hot.  What’s up?

“My partner has an abscessed tooth, he needs to get down and have surgery immediately, we’re descending tonight.”

Ho boy.  I walked back to camp and talked with Zach and Stefan about heading back to base camp tonight.  At first they were hesitant, then they did the math and realized we could fly home tomorrow morning, a whole day earlier than we expected.  If we slept at Camp 4 tonight and descended the next day we likely wouldn’t arrive at Base Camp until after the last plane had departed.

With haste, Stefan and Zach packed their shit; I was slower since I had to quickly give the other boys a tutorial on how to use the whisperlites, how to maintain the fuel pumps, and other various tips.  A bit after 8PM we took our last group photo and began the slow ski down to 13k.  We did not rope up, since the descent would be sketchy enough without being attached to each other.  Heavy sleds made the descent annoying, but we arrived at the Windy Corner cache without much trouble.  We lashed our skis to our packs, donned our crampons, and roped up for the crevasse field.  Zach had to quickly repair his sled while Stefan and I got cold waiting in the shade.  I was foolishly still using my vapor barrier socks, which force my toes into a little triangle and they hadn’t been warm since I left camp.  Once Zach was done with his repair, Stefan tied my sled to the rope as I had forgotten to do this and it’s a real pain to get to the sled once my backpack is on with the sled attached.  Rigid poles with internal rope connect the sled to my backpack, which was generally an awesome system unless I needed to access the sled while moving. My sled system was mostly-perfect, but the webbing I used to secure everything on my sled would regularly get wet and freeze in the shade, which made any adjustments very frustrating as I’d have to take my gloves off and breathe onto the webbing, thawing it and allowing me to tighten/loosen the buckles, but this also added more moisture to the webbing which would refreeze in under a minute in the shade. I’d probably have used some sort of adjustable knot solution had I thought about it more before the trip.

We had previously laughed at this crevasse field before Windy Corner for being “the most dangerous portion of the mountain,” according to our guidebook.  However…that was days ago.  The snow here changes quickly in the intense summer heat, and by the time we were headed to base camp it’d been 5 days since the last time we crossed.  We peered into bottomless crevasses as we quickly traveled over snow bridges, thinking light thoughts. At one point my sled chased me and I took a single step off the trail, immediately plunging my left foot through a thin snow bridge and into the icy chasm below.  FUCK! I fell forward and my descent STOPPED, cursing “goddammit mother fucking you’re not gonna fucking have me Denali, I’m not going into a fucking crevasse on my way out.”

It took a bit of effort to extract myself, as I had a heavy backpack and sled rigidly attached to me and I didn’t want to disconnect from either.  Anger fueled me as I pushed myself up and kept walking as though nothing had happened, though my pace certainly gave indication I wanted to get far way from this fucking place.  The traverse around Windy Corner was as annoying as expected, there was about a foot of fresh blower powder and previous parties had left the classic sled-pendulum trail below the footpath.  I briefly got excited and told the boys we might have a nice powder ski descent once we reached Camp 3. The Polo Field went by quickly, but we descended into clouds with poor visibility and the blower powder suddenly developed an inch-thick sun crust.  We also noted dozens of dark bootholes into the abyss below us.  Stefan did a magnificent job managing my heavy sled, I don’t think it flipped once.   He unfortunately had the worst of both worlds, managing my sled while being pulled backwards by his own.  Zach’s sled was the most rigid and least likely to flip, but Stefan’s flipped many times as we made our way down Squirrel Hill.  Stefan only had one attachment point on his sled, which greatly reduced his ability to control it.  At the bottom of Squirrel Hill/top of Motorcycle Hill, I was navigating by ski descent lines only.  The obvious trail upwards had been buried and not yet been repacked, I ended up cutting the corner a little too quickly and, before I knew what was happening, both my feet had plunged into a crevasse and I was on my belly once again.

“Oh fuck you, fuuuuck you! Fuck this fucking place! It’s trying to eat me! Fucking fine I’ll stay on the ridge goddammit.”

I was once again able to extract myself without taking off my pack.  Hopping back over the crevasse and backtracking, I stayed on top of the ridge a bit longer before descending Motorcycle Hill.  The crevasses we passed on this hill were obvious and easy to avoid, though we still tried to travel over them quickly.  We reached Camp 3 as the sun had started to set and I struggled to remember where we camped, where Kris buried our cache, and what this camp even looked like. After nearly a week the tents were all different as climbers cycled through this place.  I checked GAIA and found our waypoint, gesturing in the general direction as Zach advanced with a shovel.  He found our cache wand next to our old campsite someone had since occupied and began digging down.  My shovel was buried deeply in my sled bag so I grabbed a random shovel someone had stuck in the ground and assisted Zach.  After we dug three feet down we started to question Kris’s caching abilities.

“It’s not that hard….you dig a hole, put a wand direclty on top of the stuff.”

Wondering for my own sanity, I grabbed the cache wand and started stabbing it into the snow below us.  Nothing was encountered.  I stabbed it sideways towards the piles of snow away from camp and found nothing.  Flabbergasted, Zach took the wand and started stabbing towards the occupied campsite.  A few feet beneath the tent, he encountered…something.  “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.  They…moved our cache wand?  What…the…ACTUAL FUCK?!?  WHAT THE FUCK?!
What the fuck is wrong with people!?!?”

Thievery is not common on Denali, but idiocy…idiocy is to be expected.  Zach asked what we were going to do, as there was currently a tent sitting on top of our cache.  “We’re gonna undermine their tent, that’s what we’re gonna do.”  Whether or not these poor souls were the ones to move our cache wand, we didn’t know. All we knew is their tent was poorly-placed and that sucks for them. 

“Hey, whoever’s in this tent, you’re on top of our cache so…we’ll be digging it up now.”

Hearing no comments or complains from the occupants, Zach started aggressively digging sideways.  Luckily for them the cache was buried a few feet deep, so their tent didn’t collapse as we tunneled a few feet sideways into their tent’s foundation.  Removing our poop tarp, CMC, and garbage, I returned the shovel I had borrowed and we packed our shit (literally) and skied out of camp. 

We decided to remain unroped for this section, as we all skied at different abilities and didn’t want to make each other fall.  Skiing through the crust was not good downhill skiing, we constantly had to snow plow and could not make sharp turns.  I managed to find a happy medium where the crust prevented my speed from accelerating, like the sweet spot of a scissor cutting paper. It was incredibly hard on our hip flexors, but the only other option (skinning downhill) wasn’t even something we considered.  The sun continued to set as we skied down towards Kahiltna Pass and 10,000′ elevation.  The final downhill to 10k was fun and good snow and we whooped at a tent near the base of the hill.  The occupants returned our whoops as we skied by.  The next mile or two was pretty boring, I told the boys I’d have to stop once the sunset really got going on Foraker so I could take photos and, true to my word, I had to stop a few times.  Zach got pissed off enough at my dallying that he put on puffy pants on my last stop, he tried to remain in the back as he carried the rope and would be the one to rescue us if Stefan or I fell in a crevasse. I probably should have taken the rope myself.

Eventually we reached ski hill and laughed at how awful the descent this time was compared to the first time we skied down the hill.  The crust and steepness required us to either snowplow slowly, hard on the hips, or traverse back and forth, which made the descent take forever. We finally reached Camp 1 around 1AM.  We roped back up and began the lower Kahiltna ski; roping up was a mistake.  Since all skied at different speeds , everyone had to go the same speed as me since I was in front. I was the also slowest. 

To be fair, Zach had just waxed his skis and I had not waxed my skis in months, so while I was at top speed going downhill, Zach was still snow plowing.  We kept skins off and double poled all the way to the base of Heartbreak Hill, which took about an hour and a half at my pace.  Skins went on skis at the base of Heartbreak Hill, which is a nothingburger of a hill and poorly-named—try skiing the last hill up to the Mint Hut sometime!  It took about 45 minutes to power up the hill, we skied pretty much non-stop as we were acclimatized to 7,000′ higher elevation.  We arrived at Base Camp at 4AM, haggardly looking around for a spot where we could fit 3 sleeping bags.  There had beena brief discussion of pitching a tent but enough people were in open bivouac that we decided a tent was unnecessary for the 2-3 hours of sleep we would get this morning.  I took some photos of the sunrise on Foraker before getting into my bag for a few hours.

At 7AM sharp I arose and immediately started looking for Gabby, the Base Camp Manager.  Not knowing I was up an hour early, I stumbled over towards someone with a radio, but as they walked back to the NPS tent I decided I was better off waiting in my bag.  Around 7:30 we watched a helicopter with a basket arrive in camp, taking about 10 minutes to gently lower the basket to the glacier.  We could see what looked like a person sitting upright in the basket.  Later we learned this was the second and last surviving Malaysian climber who had been rescued off the summit plateau this morning. 

At 8AM Stefan and I briefly chatted with Clint before telling Gabby we would like to fly home today, please.  She said she’d let us know when there was a plane ready.  The pilot loaded our gear and we boarded a flight-seeing plane with a bunch of tourists and arrived back in Talkeetna around 10AM.  We changed into normal clothes and were at Mountain High Pizza Pie at 11AM with the first order of pizza and beer.

Before this trip I had thought I’d be willing to take another shot at Denali if this trip didn’t get us to the top.  I’ve…revised my decision. I’m never going back. 

***Update from the future*** And after more time I’ve revised it again. I might go back someday, given a few changes. I didn’t realize “misery” would be the most common word I’d use to describe this trip; prior to arriving I was genuinely looking forward to the whole snow-camping and living-outside thing.  My fitness was fantastic, but I hated so much about this trip. This was new for me.  Moving during the sunlight, waking up to frost falling on my face, shitting in a tiny bucket multiple times a day, sleeping in a confining sleeping bag with all my non-freezeables (water bottles, batteries/electronics, boot liners, gloves, socks), arms going numb at night, and most of all, being away from home.  There’s a certain quality of life I had grown accustomed to and the mountains did not provide that. I didn’t enjoy being filled with so much hatred all the time, as much as I tried to enjoy every moment of the trip…a lot of it sucked.  I think were I a few years younger and not involved in a serious relationship, the mental game would have been much easier.  As it was, we spent 12 days on the glacier, which was less than half the time we had food for. We were equipped to spend 4 weeks on the mountain, but at the very least I was not mentally prepared for it. Had I spent $10,000 or more on a guided trip, I’m pretty sure I would have stuck it out for longer. I can see why the guides have more successful summits, but damn snowshoeing (required by guides) sucks and I like being self-sufficient.  I’m pretty happy we spent most of the time moving and didn’t spent days just laying around waiting.  I’m also very satisfied how self-reliant our team was, we never needed nor sought help from anyone.

After returning from the trip, we learned parties had been unable to make the summit for over a week after we left.  The guided group we encountered at our 13k cache on Saturday the 25th reached the top on the 7th.  So…we would have needed to wait nearly two weeks from when we arrived at 14 camp for a weather window to potentially summit.  For me, the cost wasn’t worth the reward and I’m happy to be off the mountain and not sitting in the cook tent waiting for good weather.  It’s a big mountain and we climbed a large chunk of it with relatively good weather (minus the heat), it would have been nice to reach the top but the experience required would have been so disheartening and miserable.

I swore off mountaineering at the end of the trip, I felt truly beaten down by the thing I’d loved doing most for the last decade. It took a fair amount of time for my brain to heal from the trip, a drawn-out experience of suffering like this has a psychically-damaging effect. In the weeks after the trip, I found it hard to do anything, I just wanted to lay around and do nothing. So I did. Now that it’s been roughly half a year later, I find my eyes drawn back towards smaller mountains like the Deltas, even as my middle finger is drawn towards Denali. Without the need to shit in a bucket or camp for more than a few days, I think I’m going to be able to return to what I now consider “low-altitude mountaineering”, such as the Deltas and the Portage Group. I’m very grateful to have a warm -40 sleeping bag, as well as my bomb-proof parka and super puffy pants. I’ve also become a competent skier and love my new ski boots. Expedition/siege mountaineering is an entirely different experience than the overnight outings I’m accustomed to, and a whole separate species from alpinism. 2025 EDIT: seeing the latest season on Denali is disheartening, the weather has been so bad and there was another sad death. It reminds me why I’m happy we bailed last year, time passes so much more slowly when you’re stuck in a tent waiting for inReach weather updates. Getting lucky with weather truly is the deciding factor in attaining the summit, it looks like mid-May is trending better weather than June.

  Were I to return, my conditions would be:

1) Travel at night until high camp, unless and except if it’s not hot. Not only will this make travel less-miserable, we’ll avoid waiting in line on the fixed lines if we move at night. I’d much rather be bundled up in the cold than hot. The morning we cached at 13k was still my most comfortable time moving with a heavy load on the mountain, even though the rest of my crew was suffering the cold.

2) Mentally plan to make 14k a home away from home and plan to spend 2+ weeks waiting around doing nothing. Whether I need to bring more games, better snacks, or videos on my phone, it’s absolutely critical to become accustomed to living at 14k for weeks on end if we really want the summit. And if I go back a second time, I’m certainly not going back a third time.

3) Bring a 5 gallon bucket for shitting. We’ll cache the poop buckets NPS requires us carry once we use the fuel they contain. Those fucking buckets were one of the worst and most stressful aspects of the trip. I’m so used to digging a trench and stresslessly filling it with shit, urnine, and toilet paper in the Deltas, these shitcans were a stark contrast and an unexpected stressor. I get why NPS wants us to haul out our shit, but goddamn there are better systems than the smallest possible buckets that can fit 1 gallon of fuel.

4?) Somehow bring less stuff.  This is the hardest part to figure out. I’m honestly not sure how much stuff I could do without, I could have brought fewer snacks (less jerky), books, and battery banks, but I was happy to have all the extra clothing I packed even though it wasn’t useful during the heat of the day.  Having never climbed in the Central Range, I didn’t want to be under-prepared.  I trained for the weight I carried (max 85 pound training pack weight, 73 actual, 120 pound training sled, 108 actual) and didn’t have difficulty with it.  The other guys said they would have brought less stuff and that would have made them acclimatize and move faster. I’m not so sure about that for myself.

To reduce weight and time preparing before the trip, I would do fewer/no group meals, especially breakfasts. I would happily eat oatmeal, butter, and protein powder every morning, maybe with some chocolate chips thrown in. It would be faster to prepare and require almost no cleaning. For dinner I’d certainly eat more dehydrated meals (with butter added), as they’re much lighter. I have a friend who’s entire setup weighed 70 pounds on his 2nd trip to Denali (it took him two tries to get to the top), he credited this largely to entirely using dehydrated meals. While the group meals were nice, they were slow and required significantly more time to prepare and rehydrate.

I would also bring better snacks. My main concern was not eating dairy, as dairy tends to make my shoulders break out in painful cystic acne that can last weeks (carrying a heavy pack with that would suck). Fig bars are especially attractive (I brought none), there’s something special about having them in the mountains, Grant brings them a lot. He also brings Goldfish, we were craving something crunchy and salty once we got up high and I wished I had some. I would bring far fewer/no Oreos, they had a negative impact on my digestion if I didn’t eat them while moving and once I figured that out it severely limited my snack options, as I only brought 5 types. I’d bring less jerky, my body didn’t need as much protein as I thought it would. I brought a bunch of (sour) strawberry belts, which were definitely my favorite snack, I’d often eat some first thing when I awoke as a way to improve my mood. I’d bring a lot more of those. Sour Patch Watermelons were a big hit but also got old. I got tired of the Nerd Gummy Clusters but there are more than the one flavor I brought. And lots of hot chocolate with marshmallows is an essential evening drink. We all brought some sort of hot drink, I brought miso soup (which I barely drank), bouillon (also barely drank). Stefan had some bouillon and Taco Bell hot sauce which was SURPRISINGLY AMAZING. Taste buds do weird things at high altitude.

I was worried I’d have nightmares after the trip, imagining myself back on Denali with seemingly endless time ahead of me. However, I haven’t had one. The trip was a great learning experience for how to climb on a crowded route. I’m happy I no longer have to wake up in the frosty cold and move during the blazing heat, no longer have to shit in a plastic bag in a tiny bucket, no longer have to sleep with a bunch of non-freezeables in my sleeping bag, and no longer have to worry over whether or not I’d reach the summit.  That last one was a biggie, it’s so much easier to think straight when you accept you’re not getting to the top.  Though I was looking forward to the views from up top, I was not excited about the task of taking photos up high and risking frostbite (because I definitely would have taken that risk at least once).  After the trip I was happy to be home with some unexpected time off work hanging out with my love Claire, my critters, friends and family.  It’s good to be home and to consider myself “retired” from expedition summer mountaineering, at least for the moment. I still haven’t quite figured out “retirement” from mountaineering. so who knows if there will someday be another Denali post in a decade or so. For now, the impetus is gone and it’s absolutely liberating to drop that weight. If I ever go back to Denali it will be with open eyes and clearer perception, as well as with better snacks the expectation to make Camp 4 home for half a month or more. Until then, it’s time to settle down for a while and leave chasing high mountains to my camera lens.