Denali Expedition 2008
This blog post is a compilation of the McKinley 2008 posts. They are mostly in chronological order, with some grouping to make it more accessible. The posts include the actual climbing log as well as posts related to preparatory paperwork and fitness.
This blog post is a compilation of the McKinley 2008 posts, an expedition with Rainier Mountaineering. They are mostly in chronological order, with some grouping to make it more accessible. The posts include the actual climbing log as well as posts related to preparatory paperwork and fitness.
Since this was my first Denali expedition, I also did some ice climbing and a Mt. Rainier climb. The posts related to that are all included here.
Miscellaneous
McKinley - West Buttress
I booked my spot on the West Buttress route up McKinley: twenty-two days, return ticket for June 6, insurance encouraged. Mostly I’m wondering where the diminishing returns on smell really set in.
Curtis Jones
High Altitude Cerebral Edema
High altitude cerebral edema is just one of the fun things on the medical waiver for the McKinley trip. Honestly, any trip without such notices probably isn’t worth doing.
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Intersection of Friends
A diagram of my friends, grouped two ways: those with money, and those interested in mountaineering. Behold the intersection.
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Ice Climbing in Adirondack Park
Three days of ice climbing in Adirondack Park, which is amazing if you’re into the torture-for-fun thing. I climbed over a flowing waterfall on thin ice, and my guide’s advice when it looked soft was: don’t hit it hard.
Curtis JonesWords of Wisdom from an Ice Climbing Instructor
Words of wisdom from my ice climbing instructor: swing like your screw, step like you pooh. You’d understand if you gave ice climbing a try. You should.
Curtis JonesConsolation
Nothing consoles like a box of mountaineering gear in the mail. Snowshoes with re-designed bindings (does that mean they messed up the first time?), carabiners, booties, a Petzl helmet, and mitts marketed as absolute zero.
Curtis JonesDays Until....
Nine days until Rainier, seventy-four until McKinley, one hundred twenty-seven until Half Dome. I’m thinking about crevasse rescue, how to shave for a month without hot water, and whether q-tips have been quietly ruining my ears.
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How to Lose Seven Pounds in Seven Days While Eating Candy Bars
I’m back from Rainier, and I’ve taken several showers. I think the smell is almost gone. We all smelled a lot nasty at the end of the week. A lot. Pictures later.
Curtis JonesMt. Rainier Photos
My Rainier photos are online. I still haven’t pulled the video off the memory cards. I ordered Final Cut Express, so I’m sure I’ll love that learning curve. That’s me on the left.
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Talkeetna
I just booked two nights in Talkeetna, Alaska, right before our climb up Mt. McKinley. The hotel owner says the town is booming at nearly 800 people. It’s not even a town, technically: it’s a census-designated place.
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Muir Snowfield
My poorly done collage of the Muir Snowfield. One day I’ll bring a tripod so the individual images actually line up. Click to see the larger version.
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Training
McKinley Routine
Fresh popcorn and a fifty dollar bottle of wine; something is wrong with me. Rainier taught me my gym routine wasn’t enough, so now I climb my building’s 60-plus floors. My goal: under an hour with a 60 to 70 pound pack.
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McKinley Routine Part 2
Forty floors up and down with the twenty pound pack in twenty-four minutes, holding a constant pace. That works out to thirty-seven minutes for the whole building. Now I just need things to weight the pack with.
Curtis JonesMt. McKinley Routine Part 3
Sixty floors with twenty pounds in thirty-seven minutes. Now that I’m doing all the floors, I’ll focus on adding weight without losing too much time. My per-floor average barely moved from forty to sixty floors.
Curtis JonesMt. McKinley Routine Part 4
Ten more pounds for a total of 33, and sixty floors in 40 minutes. My legs gave out around halfway, so I leaned on the trekking poles, which is a bit of cheating. Forty seconds per floor, 8.1% slower with the added weight.
Curtis JonesMt. McKinley Routine Part 5
I skipped a day and felt guilty, but the rest probably helped my legs. Same 33 pounds, sixty floors a minute faster, and no trekking poles at all this time. Very encouraging progress. Time to add another ten pounds.
Curtis JonesMt. McKinley Routine Part 6
Another ten pounds on the pack, now 43, and sixty flights in 40 minutes. I caved and used the trekking poles from the 24th floor up. Also: my building has two thirteenth floors, so I’ve really been climbing 61.
Curtis JonesMt. McKinley Routine Part 7
Sixty flights of stairs, 43 pounds, 45 minutes, and no trekking poles on the way up. Slower than last time, but I dropped the crutch. Once the time comes down, I’ll add another ten pounds. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Curtis JonesMt. McKinley Routine Part 13
48 flights of stairs with 77 pounds, not skipping steps on the way down to spare my knees. It took precisely one Rage Against The Machine album.
Curtis JonesThe Expedition
Alaska
Everything I own in New York that isn’t furniture or a computer now fits in two duffle bags, ready for tomorrow’s flight to Anchorage. Eight days unshaven for protection against the mountain. Note to self: buy more AA and AAA batteries.
Curtis JonesMt. McKinley (2008) - Day 00
An overview of my May 2008 expedition on Mt. McKinley (Denali), guided by RMI. Five months later the journal is finally typed up and the pictures captioned. First task: cramming exactly 15 pounds of Snickers and trail mix into duffel bags before flying to Alaska.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 01
Day 1: New York to Atlanta to Salt Lake City to Anchorage, nineteen hours of travel, a hundred pounds of duffel bags, and a driver who tried to charge me for his own lateness. Capped off with the worst pizza I have ever had. I hope I haven’t become a New York pizza snob.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 02
Day 2: Four hours killing time at the airport, then on the road to Talkeetna with the team. A grocery stop at Carr’s, a small town with a hotel called the Tee Pee, and the surprising luxuries of cell service and free wifi. The plan: fly to the Kahiltna glacier Thursday.
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Almost There
Almost there, and not giving away details until the trip is done. After flying haphazardly from LGA to Anchorage and a night at a Holiday Inn Express, everything here is laid back, the airport is immaculate, and the air is breathable. Three hours to Talkeetna.
Curtis JonesMt. McKinley (2008) - Day 03
Day 3: Gear checks in the airplane hangar, foam wraps for ice tools, ditch loops for crevasse falls, and a $200 ranger fee I thought was already covered. A raven dragged a seagull out of the sky and ate it on the ground. Welcome to Alaska. Tomorrow, weather permitting, we fly.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 04
Day 4: A full day of fog, false starts, and weather fronts at the hangar while we waited to fly. Poor Billy got sent ahead and stranded at base camp alone. Eventually Dan, Wes and I made it out too, and by evening the whole team was finally on the mountain.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 05
Day 5: Brutal. Base camp to Camp 1 with 60-pound packs and sleds, and my legs let me know it. I introduce the Clean Mountain Can, the Park’s solution to keeping the mountain clean, and the single most important lesson it teaches: always pee first, or don’t forget your pee bottle.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 06
Day 6: Camp 1 to Camp 2, neck and neck with Ze Germans for hours. My legs hurt a little less, my appetite is the real problem, and Wes continues his fine work as our self-designated crapper constructor. The smell hasn’t kicked in yet. It will.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 07
Day 7: It’s snowing, so it’s officially a snow day. Instead of climbing we build snow walls, dig out the cook tent, and learn Billy’s secret for down time: turn off your brain or dream of warm beaches. Eight of us put away thirty-one servings of mashed potatoes.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 08
Day 8: Still stuck at Camp 2, still windy and snowy, still napping in the tent while another team tries to move in next door. Mike points out that the glacier goes on for miles. The weather sucks; the burritos do not.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 09
Day 9: Bacon helps the rehydrated eggs. A snot-covered stranger delivers a handwritten note to Mike, I daydream about ham radio and solar panels to pass the time, and Mike shares a CMC etiquette reminder I won’t soon forget: there is no I in team, but there is in something else.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 10
Day 10: The weather stopped sucking, so we pushed to 11k camp. Easily the hardest physical thing I have ever done; I was all but collapsing on the hills. And what I miss most up here isn’t food or warmth, it’s not having to conserve toilet paper.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 11
Day 11: Bad weather pins us at 11k camp, so we improve the kitchen instead of carrying past Windy Corner. I plot a future Antarctic trip and contemplate what sort of torture to endure next, while an AAI group comes back down looking like popsicles. It’s freaking freezing out.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 12
Day 12: A carry past Windy Corner to cache gear at 13,600 feet, where I lay helpless and uncontrollably cold on my empty pack. A neighbor sets up their CMC right beside our kitchen, and Fede looks hungry enough that we need a sign: please don’t feed the guides.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 13
Day 13: Camp 3 to Camp 4 at 14,200 feet, with Mike insisting it isn’t a race right up until he sprints to pass another group. We get Paul to yell at poor confused Jamie on our behalf, and hear that a climber is about to lose two toes to dehydration.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 14
Day 14: A back-carry from Windy Corner on what is supposedly a rest day, which Mike calls active rest while finding us endless chores. Lucia’s group returns from five nights at high camp looking like the walking dead. Fresh socks felt like delight.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 15
Day 15: A carry up the head wall, and I’ll just say it: the headwall is a bitch. A Mountain Trips guide tried to steal our cached fuel, my Jansport shoulder strap survived, and afterward we hiked to the edge of the world and the most scenic toilet view yet.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 16
Day 16: A rest day at 14k camp turns into spectator sport when a Navy Seal team is called up to rescue a woman whose ten toes are all frostbitten. I warm up the video camera and watch the whole drama unfold from a sun-baked tent at 90 degrees inside.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 17
Day 17: Stuck at 14k as a wind event builds toward eighty mph on the summit. The frostbitten Spanish woman gets flown out, I go a little stir-crazy, and I become a connoisseur of napping. At this altitude you can lie around doing nothing and still lose weight.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 18
Day 18: My best sleep in a week, then a full day building an igloo big enough to eat lunch in, with an arched hallway and a bench inside. A ranger even hauls us a sack of food; apparently we’re special. The upper mountain winds won’t quit.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 19
Day 19: Cold, windy, and stuck again, scrounging gummy bears in igloo food swaps while the storm hammers the upper mountain. I fall into a snow-filled quarry, hope nobody saw, and keep wishing for a camp chair. My back wishes I had one too.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 20
Day 20: We’re trapped. High winds forecast through the middle of next week, a two-man Japanese team is days overdue on the Cassin, and we only have food through tomorrow. Groups are giving up and handing us their leftovers. The blue ice underneath is showing through.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 21
Day 21: The Brits did the math, decided beer in Anchorage beat waiting out the storm, and bailed. The forecast finally eases, so we agree to move to 17k tomorrow. There’s a rough end in sight now, and the true torture begins in the morning.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 22
Day 22: A second trip up the headwall and the moment my Jansport shoulder strap snapped and I thought it was over. Six hours to 17k camp, then four more hours digging our camp into the hillside. I have never shivered so much in my life.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 23
Day 23: Stuck at 17k, just one climbing day from the summit and watching the winds above. The hike across the West Buttress was amazing, parts only a foot wide with thousand-foot drops on either side. Eat, hydrate, rest: my three new favorite activities.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 24
Day 24: Fifty mph winds upstairs, so we live inside the tents, tossing water bottles to the guides and scurrying back in. I find forgotten cash and credit cards in my jacket pocket, the jacket I almost ditched in a cache. Hot drinks are everyone’s high point except mine.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 25
Day 25: A sleepless night spent designing a ham-radio RC car in my head, another day of oatmeal I am thoroughly done with, and that jet-engine roar of wind over Denali Pass. Maybe a summit attempt tomorrow, better odds the day after. I can almost taste the Talkeetna pizza.
Curtis Jones
Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 26
Day 26: Summit day. Skipped the oatmeal (not my brightest move), got kicked around by the coldest wind I have ever felt, and scrambled up Pig Hill and the endless summit ridge. Seven hours later we stood on top of Denali, for just a few freezing minutes.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 27
Day 27: Camp 5 all the way down to Camp 3, an eternity on the crowded fixed lines that nearly finished my quads. RMI 5 found my green frisbee while digging through our cache, and Yuri pawns off all our extra food on a grateful Russian group. The thick air down low is wonderful.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 28
Day 28: A 3am start, sleds again, and a hobble to base camp on feet I’m sure are bloody stubs by now. Fog, waiting, a scramble to fly out, and finally Talkeetna: a shower, a shave of forty days of beard, and burgers at the West Rib. Gortex keeps the stink in.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 29
Day 29: A flight-seeing tour spiraling up to the summit, where I skipped the oxygen mask and apparently became the first the pilot had seen do that. Surreal to cover in minutes what took us days on foot, and I spotted our igloo at 14k. Then first class home, feet still throbbing.
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Mt. McKinley (2008) - Day 30
Day 30: Travel back to New York, hobbling slowly through airports with swelling feet (walking slow has its perks; nobody gets in your way). Driving through the city, watching the noise and trash, all I could think was, I live here? My epic month makes the old routine seem sad.
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Epilogue
I’m Going Back!
I’m going back. Some people I met on Rainier want to do McKinley, so the three of us are planning a 2009 expedition without a guide company, saving the $5,200 RMI fee. If it all works out, I’ll climb McKinley three years running, two routes, once self-guided.
Curtis JonesMt. McKinley (2008) - Epilogue
Epilogue: The aftermath of the McKinley trip, bloody toenail, numb finger, fifteen or twenty pounds gone, weeks in flip-flops. I’m already planning a self-guided return in May 2009, with a solar panel and a pack made by anyone other than Jansport. The non-belonging hasn’t faded.
Curtis Jones
Just call me...
Just call me Mountain Man.
Curtis Jones
Trekking Poles and Crevasses
On my last day on McKinley, while directing a sled around a crevasse, the trekking pole tucked behind my pack slipped out and did the pin-drop tink-tink-ploomp thing down into the ice. Gone. So I called Black Diamond and very nicely asked to order a single replacement pole.
Curtis JonesSlacking
I’ve been slacking, but I’m finally getting around to it: a few more days of journal entries from the McKinley trip, all my pictures gathered in one place, and more typing ahead. Still got a long ways to go.
Curtis JonesGoodbye, El Fede
I just got word that Fede, one of our three guides on McKinley, died Friday on Aconcagua. Two friends from that same trip are on Aconcagua right now. I almost went with them.
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It Doesn’t Completely Suck
The footage from my last Alaska trip was less than great, so I cut a ten-minute video set to suitably invigorating music. The iMac is compressing it now. Here’s a teaser while I wait to get back there and film better.
Curtis Jones
Twelve Minutes and Thirty-Eight Seconds
Twenty-five days of my life in just over twelve minutes, best experienced loud. I distinctly (by which I mean vaguely) recall filming on summit day, yet have no footage to show for it. I’ll dig through the memory cards again.
Curtis Jones