Denali Expedition 2011

My part-time Denali team wants a return trip in 2010, so here are my notes, mostly aimed at shaving weight: lighter sleeping bag, hybrid ice tool, one gallon of gas, replaceable batteries, no Clif bars, and one roll of toilet paper is plenty.

I crammed seventy-three pounds of gear and weights into the Mountain Hardwear South Col for a stair session. The external suspension strap is a nice touch and it weighs half what my Osprey does, though the shoulder cinches are stingy on leverage. Off to Rainier with it Saturday.

Made it to Ashford, a crazy little town. Gear checked, pack down to a glorious forty pounds, my lightest yet. Four days ahead, including a midnight summit push and four thousand feet of real climbing. It seems rather daunting right now.

Rainier by Liberty Ridge: brutal and amazing at once. Rockfall to the head and arm, a torn-up shoulder, ice climbing above a 6,000-foot drop, and a glissade so fast I flew past everyone. None of my other climbs even compares. Here’s the day-by-day.

After summitting we set up camp in the saddle at 13,500 feet, between Liberty Cap and the true summit. Flat, spacious, sheltered from the wind, everything I could ask for. A shame we only stayed one night.

Three plans in the works: the second annual Death March at the Grand Canyon (chasing sub-20 hours), four-plus days across the Collegiate Peaks, and a possible West Rib climb. I need ice climbing partners. Anyone? Fat chance, I know, but I ask anyway.

Off to the Grand Canyon for Death March, Part 2. Last time was 23:41; armed with better water intel and properly taped heels, we’re chasing sub-twenty. Update: 19:57, three minutes to spare. Glad I skipped the baby rattlesnake trophy.

The rental site promised a Caliber and gave us a PT Cruiser. But the real story is this year’s Grand Canyon Death March: a rim-to-rim-to-rim in 19:57, nearly four hours faster than last year. The taped toes held. I might be done with these.

The plan: camp at the trailhead, then run up Huron, Missouri, Belford, Oxford, Harvard, Columbia, and Yale, weather and appetite for pain permitting. If Corey remembers his Spot Locator, whereiscurtis.com might even track it.

A week in the Collegiate Wilderness with Corey: no sleep, relentless wind, grass-knot ground, crampons over a pass, and snow that wouldn’t quit. We bailed down Pine Creek and caught a ride from some kind old hunters.

A meadow along the Pine Creek trail in the San Isabella Wilderness, heavily worked over in Photoshop. When I’m not burning time in the Denver airport, I want to do better by the trees and the creek.

The specific volcano isn’t decided yet, but I’ll be in Ecuador by mid-January. Cayambe promises some sweet ice climbing, assuming any ice is actually around that time of year.

See the “Sean Tracy” name in this photo from the Talkeetna roadhouse? He was the first to trek from Death Valley to the top of Denali, lowest point to highest in North America. And tonight he emailed me.

Winter is nearly here and Ouray is icing up. New season, new ice tools, and one of them is simply beautiful. By the time I’m back from Ecuador it should be all out madness.

I call this one “Cold.” It was actually warm, considering the altitude.

“There’s a moose. Where’s my gun?” Actually I was reaching for my iPod, but a desert eagle in Alaska would have been cooler.

Two days in the Cohutta Wilderness, where I met exactly five people, including two pistol-packing horsemen who shared homemade peach schnapps from a mason jar. I came back with twenty-one thorn cuts and every intention of returning, but only in winter.

Ecuador pictures are here.

I know I talked up retiring from Death Marches in favor of leisurely camping, but with my climbing trips canceled and a thin ice season, I need another one. Early October, full moon, North Rim, maybe a helmet cam. Any takers?

Wes put together a video of our Ecuador trip, with lots of pictures and helmet-cam footage from the climbs. There’s a good part near the end featuring a sketchy snow bridge. Enjoy.

I first saw this book of Yosemite Valley free climbs while loitering in a ranger station after Liberty Ridge. It brings to mind being a few thousand feet off the deck with arms fatiguing, and no place to sit down and rest. Crazy.

I used to lug serious weight up dozens of flights of stairs for fitness, or torture, or something. The gym’s stair-stepper promised that same enduring burn. It delivers nothing. You barely push yourself up at all. It’s pointless.

We bailed halfway up Fisher Chimneys rather than descend in the dark, then turned to Baker for a full fifteen-hour summit day fueled by two candy bars and a liter of water. The haze, it turned out, was Canada being on fire.

I think I could happily watch nearly any movie if I could chase it with The Expendables. Plus the Magic Trackpad arrived, and the Mt. Shuksan and Baker pictures are finally posted, route and all.

The Barr Trail sign says Pikes Peak’s 13 miles and 7,300 feet can be hiked “at a brisk pace” in eight hours. I’d never call our pace brisk, more a purposeful saunter. We finished in 6:59:57.

Things are looking up. After two years away, it looks like I’ll get back to Alaska in May, maybe for the West Buttress, the West Rib, or Foraker. First some ice climbing to shake off the rust, and getting used to the idea of leading, which scares the crap out of me right now.

Two UPS guys and two FedEx guys delivered a static rope, a new helmet, the comfiest harness I’ve ever worn, and base layers. The tools are dusted off and I’ve been swinging them around the house. Now I just need ice. (Update: turns out there’s ice climbing in Georgia.)

The new Black Diamond Cyborg crampons arrived, with a metal toe strap instead of the usual plastic clip. Secure enough, but sharp enough that they go back if they start chewing up my precious Baturas. I’ll break them in in New Hampshire, Grivels in tow just in case.

Leaving for Boston, then New Hampshire, on Thursday. Depending on the avalanche hazard from Wednesday’s snow, we’ll hit some or all of a list of mostly easy lines like Shoestring Gully. I’ve been out of practice since June. Can’t wait.

It amazes me how the gear for a 4-day ice climbing trip to New Hampshire isn’t all that different from a month on a mountain in Alaska. Just a bigger pack, more food, more fuel. A photo from the house, terrible lighting and all.

Some ice climbing pictures from our warm-up at Auburn Ice Canyon. The approach is a slog, an easy fifteen-minute walk on packed snow, and we never would have found the place without somebody else’s tracks to follow.

A new 70m Mammut rope, a screaming deal on used Scarpa boots for Aimee, and the discovery that Ouray, Colorado was Ayn Rand’s inspiration for Galt’s Gulch. Dumb luck has been good to me lately.

It’s a go: May 8th we leave for Alaska and Mt. Foraker, the path less chosen. Only nine people attempted it last year, so we may have the whole mountain to ourselves. Now I just need a lighter sleeping bag, a better antenna, and a 500-page book.

Every Denali trip needs a team name, even a solo one (mine would just be “Me”). A 5th grade class whittled 500 suggestions down to a final few, from Cold Fusion to the Yellow Snow Brigade. Vote, or pitch your own.

Every Denali expedition needs a team name, so cast your vote: Team Snow Bawls or Yellow Snow Brigade. (Update: polls closed. Big Test Icicles is headed for Foraker in May.)

Three days of ice climbing done, and Ouray Ice Park is amazing on a quiet weekday. We ticked off South Park, New Funtier, and Schoolroom, with plenty of helmet-cam footage that’ll need heavy editing. A 3am shuttle awaits.

Bulky cameras take great photos you leave at home; tiny ones come along and disappoint. I think I’ve found my balance for Foraker: the terribly named Pentax Optio WG-1. Waterproof, abuse-ready, with GPS to tag my 300th photo of snow.

An image from the Alaska front range, shot while flying back to Talkeetna from Kahiltna Base Camp in 2009.

The Spot Connect kept slipping from January to Coming Soon to vanished, with no one stocking the thing. Then West Marine came through, and satellite-based text messaging will finally be mine.

An account of my May 2011 trip to Denali, self-guided this time with just Wes and a journal kept on my iPad. First lesson carried over from 2008: get a haircut, because if your hair is going to be gross for a month, have as little of it as possible. Now to pack everything.

Twenty-eight pounds of food ready, with fresh-food breakfasts and dinners worth the extra weight for happier climbers. The plan is the West Buttress of Denali, though I still hope to talk Wes into Sultana Ridge on Foraker.

Day 1: Atlanta to Anchorage, nearly leaving the two-way radio forgotten on the floor, a free first class upgrade, then an exit-row seat next to a coughing seatmate right before an expedition. We’re doing the West Buttress a third time. We’re basically veterans.

Lounging in the Atlanta Sky Club on a crowded Mother’s Day, telling the bartender to just take care of me for a couple hours. At least none of these travelers will be crowding the mountains in Alaska. First class to MSO, coach onward.

Day 2: Anchorage to Talkeetna, grocery shopping in Wasilla, gear weighing in at over a hundred pounds each, and dinner at Mountain High Pizza. Wes’ delusions of sub-80-pound loads are a distant memory. Talkeetna: a quaint little drinking town with a climbing problem.

Made it into Anchorage on time after a brutal five-and-a-half-hour coach flight beside a seatmate with no concept of the armrest as a border. Next: Wasilla groceries, then sorting gear in the Talkeetna hangar.

Spot ping from Talkeetna, Alaska: Mountain High Pizza Pie and red wine.

Day 3: Ranger orientation about not pooping everywhere, then a flight to base camp and a bitterly cold, windy slog up the Kahiltna to Camp 1, where we pillaged an abandoned kitchen for our walls. My hand’s going numb and I’m trying not to think about needing to pee.

Clean for the last time this month. About to eat a Standard Half breakfast and then go visit the ranger station.

Day 4: Wind pins us at Camp 1, so we dig a deep kitchen, eat goldfish, and decide to summit via the upper West Rib and skip the headwall. A German couple tries to move their tent into our crapper, and an AAI group grinds out a pointless carry in the wind. More power to ’em.

Spot ping from base camp up to Camp 1 on McKinley: 8 degrees and 25 mph winds. Freakin’ cold.

Spot ping near Mt. McKinley Camp 1: bad weather outside, warm inside, and goldfish.

Spot ping near Mt. McKinley Camp 1: the Germans put their tent in our kitchen.

Day 5: A cache at 10,000 feet alongside Pierre and another Frenchman, with This American Life making the time pass. A German woman starts puking at altitude, never a good sign. We’re weighing whether to push to Camp 3 or play it safe and stop at 10k.

Day 6: Friday the Thirteenth, Camp 1 to Camp 3, passing a guided team doing a single carry the whole way (their guide is insane) and ski teams that stop dead in the trail for no reason. Pukilicious and her team wisely stopped short at 10,800. No active puking, at least.

Day 7: A quick back carry from 10,000 just in time, since we were nearly out of snacks. Pukilicious moved up to 14k; she is so going to die. And in a fit of troubleshooting, I hit the logout button on the spot messenger and locked myself out for good.

Another Spot ping near Mt. McKinley Camp 3: back-carried from 10k, carrying to 14k tomorrow.

Day 8: A cache up to 13,500 feet, no sleds, crampons on at last with snowshoes behind us. A climber from Iceland, lugging a 45kg pack alone for his two man team, shows off the Airforce Lift, an impressive full-body roll to stand up. Five and a half hours round trip, then a not-quite-gumbo.

Spot location ping from Mt. McKinley Camp 3: back-carried from 10k, carrying to 14k tomorrow.

Day 9: Camp 3 to Camp 4, hauling packs heavier than we hoped. An AAI group calls our casual pace sprinting, and Wes races a German duo for the last camp site. I call that pulling a Mike. Then Mike himself walks by.

Day 10: A rest day at Camp 4 building walls and a kitchen-crapper, standing watch so no Germans move in. And the hushed news of a Mountain Trips catastrophe: a broken leg near the Football Field, and a client who fell and died descending Denali Pass.

Day 11: A back carry from 13,500, then watching a helicopter fight the wind at high camp and finally fly out the body of the Italian Mountain Trips climber. The West Rib is too icy for our gear, so we’ll only acclimatize there. My puffy pants mean no cold can reach me now.

Day 12: A rest day so warm in the puffy pants I nearly cook myself overnight. Bacon fat instead of butter on the pop tarts: sounded good, tasted awful. Max and Justin pull off a full round trip to high camp through the night, earning some celebrity status.

Day 13: No amazing climbs, no rescues, no bodies today, just high winds and a foot of fresh snow. Shovel out camp, watch Wes re-shovel it an hour later, take a warm nap in a tent that was an ice cave at dawn. My body is a machine for turning water bottles into pee bottles.

Day 14: An acclimatization hike to 15,300 on the upper West Rib, turned back by a crevasse with no findable snow bridge (Wes wanted to jump it; I talked him out of it). A balmy +15 forecast and a neighbor named Mike whose lost clients we keep telling to go away.

Day 15: Weather just bad enough to keep us off high camp and honor the sabbath. Teams descend all around us, the Army Rangers next door complain about the smell of bacon and pancakes again (guilty, and it’s the last of it), and a client carves an ice obelisk to pose beside.

Camp 4 to Camp 5, with a mid-fifties pack up the headwall and a Russian group asking to move into our fortified camp. Someone got offered thirty pounds of sharp cheddar. The weather report says we might summit tomorrow, and then the trip will be over.

A rest day at high camp: gusts hitting the tent, fortune cookie weather reports that never quite agree, and freeze dried beef stew so inedible a 3 Musketeers had to stand in. Eager to finish the trip, and already sad to leave the landscape behind.

A flat mattress, a CMC neglected, a serious headache, and a guided team firing up stoves for the summit at 3am. I persevere and stay in the tent all day. Tomorrow, weather permitting, we head up by ten.

Two in the morning, a team falls 1,500 feet off the top of the autobahn, and high camp happens to be full of military rescuers staged minutes away. Two dead, two survivors, and another reminder that this mountain keeps its tally. Summit day tomorrow?

Summit day at last: the steep new route to Denali Pass, Team Yark, Team Gabby, the traverse that is still the best part of the whole climb. Then a slow descent that turns into a second rescue when the team that accused us of stealing biners peels off the autobahn.

Down from high camp in a t-shirt through a whiteout so total there was nothing to be seen. We pass the guide who nearly killed his team, give away free calories, dump the CMC in its peaceful resting place, and reach Camp 3 to thaw smoked salmon into ramen.

The final push: Camp 3 to base camp through the bright Alaskan night, then Sheldon Air flies us out while the Rangers, who missed the previous evening’s window by forty-seven minutes, sit stuck. A shower (twice), a shave, and Talkeetna restaurants that never quite manage to serve me.

A last breakfast in Talkeetna where a stranger recognizes my iPad case as her professor’s design, a ride to Anchorage, and then home. The trip was concluded.

The video Wes put together of our May 2011 West Buttress trip on McKinley. Enjoy.