This photo was taken by our lead guide, Michael Horst. It’s one of my favorites from all of our climbs. We are on a ridge headed to high camp at 17,200 ft.
Denali is a special place. The terrain is vast and the weather conditions are seemingly always changing. The twilight-like hours when the sun dips behind the mountains feel almost surreal. Sometimes when you are slogging up a steep hill with 65 lbs. in your pack and more gear dragging behind you on a sled, you forget to take in your surroundings. Denali is just plain hard work which, in all honesty, is one of the things I really loved about it. You are just grinding it out with each carry and move all the way up the mountain. Somewhere in between you are eating and sleeping as much as you can to be able to perform.
We had to make two summit attempts – one in 2014 and one in 2015. This was a tough mountain to have to do twice. The trip began in Talkeeta which is a nice little town to visit. We stayed at the Fireweed Station Inn, one of the best bed and breakfasts that I have ever been to. Hobbs and Tom (the owners) are great people, the accommodations are very nice and the food is fantastic. The day after we arrived we commenced with gear check, the guides organized the food bags and then we headed over to the airfield to fly to Denali base camp. Base camp is where we organize all our gear, cache anything that is not needed and load up our packs and sleds for the first move to half camp. I had trained with 65 lb. packs for several months leading up to this climb. But I don’t think I was truly prepared for how it would feel putting on my pack (which definitely weighed closer to 75 lbs.) and dragging the sled (probably had another 40-45 lbs.) while wearing snowshoes. I felt like my feet were stuck in concrete when I attempted to take my first few steps forward. Another climber that had just returned to base camp saw me and said, “Don’t worry, it won’t feel as bad once you get moving." I found that hard to believe, but somehow I did manage to get to half camp. We set up our tents and the guides dug out the meal tent area. They also dug out the bathroom area where they put the Clean Mountain Can (CMC). We also built a snow wall – something with which we had experience because they taught us how to do it during our Denali Prep Course. It is hard work building a wall but important for protecting camp. You have someone cutting blocks of snow out of the ground, two people carrying it over to the wall location and then another person stacking the blocks. Once camp is set up, dinner is served and then it is time for bed. Lower on the mountain we actually climb at night and sleep during the day because the snow is firmer to walk on throughout the night. Once we moved higher up the mountain, we started climbing during the day and sleeping through the night because the nights get colder. Such was our routine day after day all the way to high camp. Like I said – climb, eat, sleep, repeat.
We actually got stuck at half camp for several days due to weather. We had several feet of snow dumped on us which made it impossible to move up to the next camp. Once the weather cleared, we climbed for 6-7 days straight to make up for the days we lost getting stuck at half camp. We made it to high camp along with several other teams. The next day, summit day, the sun was shining and everything looked great for a summit attempt. We got suited up and ready to go when we heard another team (that had gone ahead of us) radio down to say they were heading back to camp. Evidently there was an avalanche hazard just a little ways out from camp. All the teams had to stay in camp and hope that sometime over the next couple of days the wind would clear off the hazard. I don’t think Brian left the tent for nearly 18 hours. I had to get out to stretch my legs even if the weather was terrible…plus my pee bottle was smaller than his and I had to empty it. Unfortunately, the weather worsened and after a few more days, we were forced to descend even though the weather conditions were still not good. It was actually a pretty hairy and tiring descent to 14k camp. The snow was very deep and we were plunge stepping most of the way down. We were the first team to leave high camp, but soon after the other teams followed our lead. Dave Hahn, who was guiding his own team, met us at the edge of 14k camp and gave us water. He had also dug out our cache for us. I thought that was pretty awesome, but I guess that’s just how people are on the mountains. Always trying to help others out. Needless to say our summit dreams were over for this trip. The next day, we descended all the way out to base camp. It was a race to the finish. What I learned later is the first ones to arrive at base camp get first dibs on the plane rides back to Talkeetna. Luckily we made it out on a flight that day after a weather delay. On the plane ride back, I had a view of Denali and knew we were going to have to return again next year.
And so we did. In 2015, we made it to high camp in good style. I believe I was actually a bit fitter on the second attempt than I was in 2014. Weather became an issue for us again at high camp and after a few days I was starting to think we weren’t going to be able to make a summit attempt. We did make a first attempt, but the weather just wasn’t cooperating. All of the other teams that were with us at high camp gave up and descended. We stuck it out for another day or two and then Michael informed us that we were going to make another attempt. This one was successful. We couldn’t see anything from the top, but we could see the summit marker by our feet in the ground and that was good enough for me. During our descent, we did have a mishap shortly before arriving back at high camp. I am not going to go into all the details, but the story involves Brian stepping on some ice and me becoming airborne and landing on my face. The rest of the descent to base camp was (luckily) uneventful. Once we arrived at base camp, we started working to organize our gear since it would be a few hours for our plane to arrive. We did sit down for a few minutes to just relax and enjoy the sunshine and the fact that we were done. The ranger service had actual chairs for us to sit on and some sort of complementary orange drink. After about ten minutes of relaxing, I stood up and almost immediately fell down because my legs gave out on me. I could barely walk my legs were so stiff. It was as if my body finally caught up to my brain and knew I was done climbing. I never had that happen to me before – it was strange. After a while our plane arrived, we flew back to Talkeetna and had a well-deserved meal at the West Rib….and then a shower!
So, enduring 30+ mph winds and peeing into Nalgene bottles for days on end while waiting out a storm all just to say I made it? Absolutely!
