climbing

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.