Denali (20,310') - West Buttress

"You know those things you've always wanted to do?  You should go do them"

 When I started climbing mountains a few years ago, I dreamed of trying one of the great peaks in the world. I thought, maybe I should  climb Denali, the tallest in North America at 20,310' (6190 meters) and arguably one of the most challenging of the 7 summits. 

This June I met that life goal.

I spent a total of 20 days in the Alaska Range climbing the West Buttress of Denali. The experience for me was the culmination of 6 months of difficult training and focus, and was a truly unique life experience. 

 

Denali!

The mountain is climbed capsule style. A series of camps are established on the peak while carrying hundreds of pounds of gear, and leap-frogging it up the mountain. I climbed the West Buttress route, which is by far the easiest route, being non-techincal (although not totally a walk-up either). 

I had originally hoped to climb it self-supported with a group of friends, but that fell through, so I decided to go with a guide - The American Alpine Institute.

West Buttress route of Denali. Photo credit - Alaska Mountaineering School

 I took over 400 photos over 20 days, so I am going to try to whittle this blog post down to a handful of words and images to try and capture the whole experience. Its rather difficult to write about, and the pictures don't to the place justice. I cannot suggest enough that all climbing and mountain enthusiasts should tackle this great mountain once in their life. The experience won't leave you the same, I promise.

The trip began in Anchorage, Alaska. There I met up with the climbing team, 3 guides and 9 climbers. By far the biggest group I have ever climbed with. We loaded up a van and trailer with our gear and drove about 3 hours North to the town of Talkeetna, the tiny town that is the staging area for the mountain. 

Loading up.

 Once we were in Talkeetna, we headed straight to the private airport and K2 aviation's hanger. In the hanger we organized and sorted the hundreds of pounds of climbing gear, food, fuel and so on.

Sorting gear in the hanger

 In the late afternoon we helped load up 2 Otter airplanes with gear, boarded the plane and headed off for the glacier. 

Otter plane - equipped with skis for glacier landing

 

On our way!

The planes fly by sight only (no instruments!) so if there is any issues with visibility, the planes turn around. Our first flight into the glacier encountered thick fog, turning the pace around and back to Talkeetna. Later in the day, we tried again, this time with a successful landing on the glacier at base camp (7,200').

Landing at Base camp.

 The plane was unloaded, and a camp set-up. This was the start of 20 days in another world of snow and ice. 

Building camp

 The next day, we broke camp, loaded sleds and carried everything to Camp I (7,800'). Although not very far (6 miles) and not much elevation gain, it was actually one of the hardest days on the whole trip as we carried all of the gear in one shot. My sled has about 80 lbs in it and my pack had about 60 lbs. Heavy loads!

Loading the sleds

Traveling on the glacier

 We set up camp I, then the work began. For the next week or so, the way our days would go would be
1. Carry a load up somewhere below the next camp bury it.  
2. The next day, move up to the next camp
3. The next day , retrieve the gear below the camp
 repeat steps 1-3. 

Up until camp 3 (~ 14,000') the terrain is pretty mellow. Just a low angle glacier with the occasional steep hill. The weather was great for the most part. Sunny and warm during the day. We only had one day of snow, at camp 2, a good 3 feet dumped on us, but was didn't slow progress.

Fresh snow at Camp II (~11,000')

 

Burying gear in a white out

 On the lower glacier, the sun is intense. Even a few minutes of exposure can result in sever sun burns. To manage this, I wore a Patagonia sun hoody, glacier glasses, a baseball cap, a buff, a ridiculous looking nose guard combined with huge amounts of sun screen. The result, is that I looked very funny. Good thing I was on a glacier with a bunch of other dorky looking people!

Glacier sun protection = weird fashion statement

Over a week after starting, we rolled into the camp 3 at 14,000'. This camp is really where the mountain begins. The rolling easy glacier gives way to the steep upper mountain, and the camp itself becomes a mini tent-city with hundreds of climbers being there to climb a variety of routes or ski the mountain.The views from the camp are also spectacular. 

Our tents at camp 3

Views from Camp 3.

We built ourselves a nice wall of ice blocks, and settled into the rhythm of life at camp 3. 

Our wall

The "nights" (the sun does not actually set, just goes behind mountains) were extremely cold, dropping down to - 16F (-27 C) some night. We retrieved a gear cache one day, did a training day another, and then had a rest day. 

Life was interesting,  we had a cook tent dug out, where we enjoyed awesome meals (Pad Thai, Mac n' cheese, back country pizza, pancakes, I even had a variety of meat substitutes like tofurkey sausage). 

Cook tent

We dug and walled in a bathroom area. Here there was a "pee hole" in the snow, and a plastic bucket provided by the National park service, called a CMC (clean mountain can) is used for solid bodily waste!

Jaime demonstrates how to use the bathroom facilities

Denali toilet system - The clean mountain can (CMC) in all of its glory. 12 people would use this thing at once....

After these 3 days we started in on moving up the upper mountian. Above camp 3 there are 800 feet of fixed ropes which are climbed using jumars. This leads to a col, and a narrow ridge which ends in a flat glacier and camp 4 at 17,000'. 

On a frigidly cold morning, we carried some gear to be buried up the fixed lines to the col at 16,000'. This was possibly one of the coldest days on the trip, one of our group even got frost bite on his fingers, and I may have sustained a cold related injury on my feet (more on that later).

At the col around 16,000'

So cold I had to wear my expedition parka and big mitts

We then dropped back down to Camp 3, and remained stuck there for a few days due to extreme cold higher up and high winds. At that time, 3 of our group quit, and headed back down the mountain.

We entertained ourselves at Camp 3 by listening to podcasts, going to the weather board at the climbing ranger camp and taking short hikes to gorgeous views. 

The weather forecast board

Some of the views from the short hikes were not so bad...

Eventually the forecast improved, so we packed up and moved camp up the fixed lines to the high camp at 17,000' (camp 4). This was one of the harder days, carrying 50+ lb packs up steep fixed lines. However, it was also one of the more enjoyable parts of the climb as there was a long narrow ridge, at times only a few feet wide. The views were spectacular. We were very lucky, and had a gorgeous, warm sunny day for the move. On the move we also ran into Colin Haley, perhaps North America's top alpinist. Very cool.

Colin Haley - Notice his tiny backpack!

 

Moving on the ridge

Looking back at the fixed lines (see the obvious track with the tiny people!)

I'm excited to take a break

Always stunning views

A narrow section of the ridge

We arrived at Camp 4, pitched our tents. Living up there is hard. Its cold and exposed to the winds. We ended up spending 4 days there due to weather. But on the day of our arrival it was beautiful, so I had the chance to wander around and take a bunch of pictures.

Camp 4 at 17,000'

 

Looking down at Camp 3 from 17,000'. Its like a mini tent city

Looking at the ridge - see the climbers?

We had 2 tent -bound days of bad weather. Sunny, but windy and bitterly cold (~ -20F; -30C). We then made a summit bid, but got turned around due to extreme wind at Denali pass. We were super bummed.

We tuned into the radio forecast at 8 PM that night: -25F and 30 MPH winds. We went to bed thinking that the summit was not going to be ours.


We woke up to calm, sunny and warm weather! So we loaded up the packs, and made a blast for the summit. The weather was spectacular. Our lead guide told us, that in 14 summit bids he has made, this was the warmest one! Lucky us!


Its actually pretty easy going to the summit. Only 3,000' of elevation gain, a lot of it on very moderate, mellow terrain. The only hard section, is the autobahn, a 1000' hill our of Camp 4 which has running belays. After that, smooth sailing. 

The autobahn is the tracked hill in the back. The only hard part of summit day

Mellow terrain above the autobahn

After about 5 hours we reached the final summit ridge. Excitement was building. We were going to make it!

The final summit ridge!

When we topped out, I can't begin to describe the feeling. I have spent the past 6 months training more than 15 hours a week. I have dumped thousands of dollars into this goal, and I have had a almost singular focus on achieving this single moment. Its a exhilarating experience to have put so much energy into something and then reach it. What a moment. 

The rest of my team approaching the summit

Jay and I reached the summit first. So had a few moments to hoard the glory

 

Group summit photo!

This is what it looks like at the top of North America!

We made a hast descent. On the way we ran into Colin Haley again, having completed the speed record on the Cassin. We also ran into Chantel Astorga and Anne Gilbert Chase who had just completed the first female ascent of the Slovak Direct. Very cool, a lot more bad-ass than climbing the West Buttress!

We spent a night at Camp 4 and then descended the ridge. Unfortunately, everyone else on the planet was descending at the same time and the ridge was a bit of a shit-show. Luckily we were still high from having reached the summit, so did not mind too much.  

Heading down the ridge

chaos on the way down.

 We spent another night recovering at camp 3 (14,000') before dropping all the way back to basecamp in a single overnight push.

Night descent. Sometime around 2 AM

 When we arrived at base camp, we hastily pitched our tents, and dug out some well deserved cached beer!

Well deserved beer!

 The next morning, we queued up with others clamoring to get back to civilization, and loaded up the glacier planes

Everyone is ready to go home. Our guide enjoys a morning beer (right)

 

Load the planes. lets' go home!

When we arrived back in Talkeetna, I bought a one way ticket to LAX, and caught a bus to Anchorage. About 36 hours later I was back in Fresno.

The whole experience was almost surreal.  I suffered some minor nerve damage to my toes (maybe trench foot), which will hopefully heal soon. At the start I was unsure I was up to the challenge of spending 20 days in a tent on an arctic mountain, but I relished the whole experience. I'm already plotting my next big peak expedition. Who wants to join me for some suffering?