The Forbidden Tour

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Chair Peak circumnav & Kaleetan ski

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The usual mid-winter Chair Peak ski circumnavigation but with a climb/ski of Kaleetan thrown in for giggles.

Dragontail Peak ski

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mid-winter trip into the Enchantments to climb/ski Dragontail

Big Sur and a V-Strom

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Ptarmigan Traverse, July 2-6, 2006

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Becky and I hiked the Ptarmigan this past week. It was tough for me to leave skis behind as I always thought my first time doing the traverse would be on skis, but after the previous week of hot temperatures we figured the on again off again routine with skis would make walking the traverse a little more practical. And especially after seeing Bachelor Creek in all its slide-aldery glory, I was kinda happy to not have boards with me this time around.
Anyways...current conditions on the traverse:Traverse to Cache Col is mostly snow and getting over cache col is an easy scramble on the left side of the cornice.Descent to Kool-aid lake is on rotten snow with plenty of hollows near rocks and the traverse towards the Red Ledges is alternating snow and heather.
There is a hanging snow patch and a moat at the entrance to the ledges. Of the four parties we saw doing the traverse at the same time, only one successfully pulled off the scramble on the right side of the moat to gain the ledges (they also brought some nuts to protect it, none of us did).
We opted to descend a bit and climb a straightforward snow gully that gained the ridge and although we hiked further, we topped out right around the same time the Red Ledges party topped out. Probably still in shape for a couple weeks or so.
The traverse towards the Middle Cascade glacier is alternating gravel ribs and snow, and the walk up the glacier is fine, no nearby crevasses or saggy snowbridges.The snow tounge off the back side of Spider Col was an easy glissade.
Among the parties also doing the traverse this week was a group of four with skis, and from Spider Col to Yang Yang lakes was one of the few times that Becky and I were truly jealous of their boards as the flew past us heading for camp. Only a couple short heather patches between Spider col and Yang Yang lakes, but the snow is very thin lower down and won't last long at all.
About 5am Tuesday morning at the lakes it started to thunder and pour rain but it was short-lived and by noon we were all dried out and packed up. The goat path to pass through the cliffs just south of Yang Yang lakes is still covered in snow and was a steep, but straightforward climb to the ridge below Le Conte.
The Le Conte glacier is well filled in and we didn't have any troubles getting up to the col towards the South Cascade glacier.The long descending traverse towards White Rocks Lakes was another spot where Becky and I were envious of the four skiers as the scooted past us and beat us to camp by about an hour.
White Rocks Lakes has to be one of the most beautiful campsites I've ever been to....what a dramatic view of Dome and the Chickamin glacier!Wednesday morning we headed for campsite either on Itswoot Ridge or the Dana glacier so we'd be in position for a climb of Dome on Thursday, but upon reaching Spire Col we had a view to the south of the incoming storm...a large thunderhead and grey clouds marching up from Glacier Peak. Not wanting to be in the alpine when the thunderstorm hit we bagged our Dome Peak plans and headed for Cub Lake.A party up there a week and a half earlier reported continuous snow to Cub Lake, now its melted out significantly and we were off the snow after 1300ft of descending from Spire Col.
Within about fifteen minutes of us setting up the tent at Cub Lake the thunder, rain, and hail started up and we were consumed by clouds. After a very dreary evening surrounded by slowly damper and damper gear in our little single-wall tent we packed up Thursday morning and headed for the car.
From the ridge above Cub Lake the main trail appears to veer into the massive avy slide path. Taking the advice from a friend who'd been in to climb Dome the week before we headed down on the south side of the slide path through mature forest and quickly found the climbers path at around 4700ft without ever setting foot amongst the slide debris.Once we hit the trail we just put our heads down, tried to ignore our saturated rain gear, soaked-through boots, and just chug our way out to the car.
Very happy to have finally seen all the terrain around the Ptarmigan, maybe one of these days I'll feel up for bringing skis along.

Two weeks in the Waddington Range

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I saw on an article on the Waddington Range in Backcountry magazine about eight or nine years ago, back when I was an architecture student at U of O. The place looked amazing...huge rock spires, expansive glaciers, views to tidewater from the alpine, and of course Mt.Waddington...described as Mt.Rainier with a three pitch rock climb on top...who doesn't want to see that! I knew I wouldn't have the skill to climb the rock tower on the top of Waddington, but I sure wanted to climb high on its glaciers and ski in such a wild setting.

Fast forward to 2004...it had been a year since my last big trip, Denali, and I was smack in the middle of the hell of taking my architecture licensing exams...time to start day dreaming of the next big trip. Ski touring in the Waddington Range was an easy choice.

Sat April 23

We arrived Friday night and stayed at the White Saddle bunkhouse at Bluff Lake which is ran by Mike King's brother and sister-in-law Dave and Lori. Lori cooked up a fantastic breakfast for us before we drove over to the helicopter hanger. Sausages, orange juice and all you can eat pancakes is a great way to start a trip. Lori had some great stories about all the folks that have stayed with them through the years such as skiers for a Warren Miller Movie and when Brad Pitt was up there for the filming of 'Seven Years in Tibet' ... who knew that Tibet was actually in the Waddington range.

The weather was good so Mike flew us in that morning and we spent the day soaking in the scenery and getting camp put in. That night it started to rain and our spirits sink...we're thinking "we're on a glacier...and its raining....welcome to the coast range"

Sun April 24

By morning it has cleared and we ski towards Mt.Cavalier. A small but very aesthetic pyramid just above the Dais glacier. We figured it would make for a good warm up climb and ski. There hadn't been a hard freeze that night and with the rain the snowpack was ugly. Both Matt and Todd managed to find snowbridges that collapsed on the way up. Fortunately we were all roped up, but punching through crevasses while wearing skis kind of drove home how sloppy the snowpack was. We put skis on the packs at Jester-Cavalier col and booted the last few hundred feet up the ridge to the top. Todd and I had hoped to ski the 35-40 degree north face on Cavalier but the whole thing was knee-deep smhoo, so rather than start the trip with a big avalanche we booted back down the ridge to the col and skied the lower angle terrain, figuring we should give the snow a little time to firm up.
That night we discussed what to do next, we had planned to hit the Dais couloir - Angel glacier route on Waddington that next day but with the soft snow and plenty of time for conditions to improve we opted to take four days of food and fuel and check out the Munday area

Mon April 25

Up early, hoping to ski the crust before it melts away into deep mashed potatoes we break camp and skin over Jester pass and down to the Corridor glacier. Everyone except for me opted for moderate sized packs and sleds. I'd had enough of misbehaving sleds on Denali a few years back so I just opted for a big backpack.
The ski down to the Corridor glacier was survival skiing for most everyone, the snow by mid-morning had been cooked to sludge and the sleds were thrashing around quite a bit. Once over Jester Pass and on the flats I think the sled equiped folk had an easier time than me.

There was evidence everywhere of a big avy cycle that had happened recently, lots of 2' crowns on sun-facing slopes, so we were happy to get to the flats of the Corridor glacier. The rest of the day was spent touring across the Corridor and up the Ice Valley glacier where we set up camp about 2km from Mystery Pass and Mt. Munday.
We had a fine yoyo slope right out of camp which allowed the more energetic folk a chance for some turns after a day of mostly load hauling.

Tues April 26

Mt. Munday via Mystery Pass. Early start out of camp, finally have a good hard freeze that night and it gets us thinking the corn cycle might soon start in a day or two. Easy skinning up to the pass and on up to just below the summit plateau. A short 200vf section of 45 degree snow brought us up to the plateau. Sunny, dead calm, views across the Tiedemann glacier and out all the way to Bute Inlet. The ski down went all too fast...probably shoulda waited another hour or so on top for the slopes to soften a bit more. Rest of the day spent hanging out at camp and yo-yoing the slopes on the side of the Ice Valley glacier. A trio of guys from Whistler who were camped nearby kept us entertained by skiing lines above camp that were way over our comfort level.

Wed April 27

Julia hadn't joined us for Munday the day before because of some boot fit issues and needed a day out of her ski boots, so with a good forecast we figured "lets go ski Munday again". Got up a little later with hopes to harvest more corn today, but high winds above Mystery Pass and even worse winds ripping spindrift off the summit plateau cause us to turn around just shy of the summit plateau. We skied down to Mystery Pass and skinned up the side of Mt.Agur hoping to find some sun-soften snow, but the wind was just too strong today, keeping everything too firm to be all that fun.


Thurs April 28

Broke camp early and headed back for our cache on the Dais glacier. We wanted to get up and over Jester Col before the slope turned into an avy hazard. We were back at the 'basecamp' my late morning and checked the weather again (first trip with a sat. phone...man are they handy). Looked like we'd have good weather on Friday then it was going to get stormy, so we figured we should try to get in the climb of Waddington before the snow started. We packed our day packs and set the alarms for 3:30am.

Fri April 29

Really really cold this morning, perfect for climbing. We cruised up the Dais glacier and got to the bottom of the Dais couloir by sunrise. The couloir was about 300 meters long, about 45 degrees at the bottom and mellowed to 35-40 degrees for the last 100m or so. Easy climbing with an axe in one hand and a whippet in the other. Unfortunately Matt's crampons broke with about 100m to go. The steel toe bail on his aluminum crampons had taken so much stress from climbing on front points that the holes the toe bail fit through stretched enough the toe bail popped out...not good. (fyi, don't use Grivel G10 aluminums for front-pointing, this was the first time I'd ever heard of a toe bail blowing out, usually alum crampons break their spikes, not completely fall apart) We set a picket and he started working on his crampons with a leatherman tool and jerry rigged them together, but he was going to be limited to flat footing those feet for the rest of the day.
Once at the top of the couloir we hiked easy terrain to the schrund that separates us from the Angel Glacier. Picked one of two decent looking snowbridges and quickly got across that slope above the schrund is really spooky...not all that steep, but just a perfect convex bubble, that gets steeper and steeper ending in a big ice cliff and a long rocky fall to the Scimitar glacier below. Glad that the snow conditions were firm and avy hazards weren't an issue.
Once down on the Angel we started skinning again. The skinning wasn't all the easy...stretches of drum-like windslab were hard to get a grip on and when you'd try to boot it, you'd often break through the crust and be wallowing calf or knee deep in powder. (I'll bring ski crampons if I go back...Todd brought them and Matt and I were envious)
Before we knew it it was about 2:00 in the afternoon, our energy levels were dropping, thick clouds were visible out to the west and we knew we'd have a long descent with Matt's damaged crampons, a tricky schrund crossing and a couloir we weren't sure we could ski, so with only about 400 vf to go to the NW summit we decided to take off the skins and start our descent.
The turns down the Angel glacier were actually good as long as we could link the pockets of powder and avoid the windslab.
We had been worried about crossing the schrund and the convex slope because it could be really soft but it was icy has hell when we got to it, unfortunately we only found this out after Todd had skinned across the schrund and was forced to inchworm his way along the slope relying on his whippet and edge grip of his skis to keep him from slipping off the face of the world. After a couple pickets had been put in and a little more trashing, Matt, Todd, and I were all back over the schrund skiing rough, bulletproof slopes down to the top of the couloir.
There was now enough of a wind and clouds that the top of the couloir was too firm for our liking. It could certainly have been skied, but we chose to play it safe, it had been a long day and we didn't want to do something stupid. With our two 50m ropes tied together Matt was lowered on belay in case his crampons blew off again (which they did actually). After two more lowering stations we were on mellow enough terrain to tie in and plunge step until we were past the Dais glacier schrund.
Finally at 6:30 we clicked in to our skis and cruised the 3500ft of not too bad breakable crust back to camp. It was a long day, we didn't top out (not that the NW summit is the true summit anyways), but we got to experience a beautiful route that threw a few good puzzles at us and we had some decent turns along the way.


Sat April 30

Just as my girlfriend Becky had told us on the sat phone the day before, today was going to be a day to sleep in and drink coffee. It snowed all day, though not all that cold and little if any wind. We sealed up the sides of the megamid cook tent with snow blocks and just took it easy, eager to get out on the freshies once the weather improved.


Sun May 1

No more snow showers, high overcasts, and about 4" of new...enough to cover the rain runnels and hardpack. We skied down the Dais glacier to the Dais-Franklin junction and then up Regal Dome, a 700m cruiser that extended up towards the NW ridge of Wadd. We spend the day skiing two laps on the Dome with no other parties in sight. Nice to see just our tracks on a mountain. Regal Dome would be a great spot to hit early in a trip up there cause of the views of all the rest of the surrounding terrain.

Mon May 2

Snowy, cloudy weather in the morning...figured it would be another day to spend in camp, but by early afternoon the sun was out and we had managed to dry all our gear.
With our remaining days to be spent down-glacier from where we were camped, we decided to break camp and slide it the 2 or 3 km down to the Dais-Franklin glacier junction where most folks locate their basecamps on Waddington ski trips. We camped alongside the trio from Whistler and group of energetic guys with purple, red and green dyed hair from Victoria.
The lower slopes of Regal Dome were right out our back door so yo-yoing some great corn was an easy way to fill the rest of the day.

Tues May 3

Mostly sunny weather so we were up early and started the five mile slog up the Finality glacier to Mt.Finality. Easy skinning all the way to the summit, took about five hours from our camp. We all agreed this was our favorite viewpoint of the trip...all the peaks we'd played on could be seen, and the rather remote Mt.Jubilee further west looked like a great (albeit remote) destination. I got a kick that we could once again see tidewater from a peak, this time the Knight Inlet was visible in the valley bottom out west. Finality also rests on the edge of the Waddington range and we could see deep green valleys just a couple miles away.
The snow was really nice corn the whole way down and the Finality glacier has just enough downhill tilt that we could pretty much cruise the five mile back to camp with only the occasional skate to keep the speed up.
While we'd been away we noticed that Mike had been busy making three flights that morning...we figured a huge group had landed. Much to our surprise, the three flights were for only seven guys (and a ton of gear)...their camp made us feel really ghetto. They had a massive cook tent, LED lighting, a separate tent for each of them, camp furniture, propane stove, and a sat phone, laptop, and a solar panel battery charger. And we had thought we were high-class cause we had booze and some canned fruit


Wed May 4

More good weather, more turns to be had. We skied to the head of the Fury Glacier and up to Fury Gap. Skinned below the steep couloirs of Chris Spencer ...maybe I'll try those next time when I'm a better skier:) and skinned the ridgeline that connects Brokenhead and Chris Spencer. Great views of the Scimitar glacier icefall and the Angel glacier route from there, plus the ridiculously steep northeast face of Mt.Bell.
Best turns of the trip were from Fury Gap back to camp…rocks on one side, icefall on the other, and in between was smooth, buttery corn that had no top speed limit....we all savored the big gs turns down the 35ish degree slope....good turns to end the trip on.

Thurs May 5

With food running low, our legs getting tired, and our polypro beginning to rot, we figured we'd pack up and head home rather than running the risk of getting stuck in a multi-day storm with only ramen and oatmeal left to eat. A quick sat phone call to Mike King and an hour later we were on our way out. Before we knew it we were back in the land of green...always a shock to be transported from winter to summer in a matter of minutes by way of helicopter.
We happily paid up $5 each for showers at Dave and Lori's and then were on the road...rolling in to Seattle at 1 am.

We all felt very fortunate with the weather, we never expected to fly in and out the days we wanted and only spent one day tent-bound. I'll definitely be back again.

Denali West Buttress expedition

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Drury Hall

Norm Fox

Ryland Moore

Asheley Kinsey
Pete Alderson

The schedule:
Thurs May 15th leave for Alaska
1 Fri. 16th -arrive on glacier
2 Sat. 17th -depart basecamp and single carry to 7800ft
3 Sun. 18th -carry equipment to 10,300ft
4 Mon. 19th -move to 11,200ft
5 Tues. 20th -retrieve cache from 10,300ft
6 Wed. 21st -carry gear to 13,500ft
7 Thurs. 22nd -rest day/storm
8 Fri. 23rd -move to 14,200ft
9 Sat. 24th -retrieve cache from 13,500ft
10 Sun 25th -rest day, build igloo
11 Mon 26th -carry load to base of fixed lines
12 Tues 27th -rest day/storm
13 Wed 28th -move to 17,200ft
14 Thurs. 29th -summit
15 Fri. 30th -return to 14,200ft
16 Sat 31st -late morning departure for basecamp, 3am arrival in basecamp
17 Sun 1st -fly out for Talkeetna

Journal while on the mountain:

Well, the trip is off to such a crazy start I haven’t had a chance to write any journal entries. All in all, things are going pretty well. Out flight was delayed out of Seattle by two hours, but we eventually were on our way. We met Asheley in Anchorage, due to the delay, he’d already been waiting for about five hours. We met our Denali-Overland van driver and were on our way after a short, frantic trip to the grocery store for butter, cheese, and basecamp snacks. The drive through the early morning hours was surreal, most of us slept as best we could during the three hours.
We arrived bright and early in Talkeetna and registered with the Park Service at 9am, then were back at Doug Geetings at 10:30. Our pilot Jacque said the weather was good and we should get our glacier clothes on and start packing the plane. We had not planned on such a fast pace…sometimes teams get stuck in Talkeetna for days, even a week, waiting for good enough weather to fly to the mountain…and here we are just in town barely long enough to register and now we packing the plane in time to have lunch at basecamp.
The plane was loaded and Norm, Dru, and I squeezed into a tiny beat-up Cessna 185 with skis. Bags were in our laps, skis alongside our heads, and sleeping pads under our feet, but we fit and away we went.
About 45 minutes later we were in the middle of the Alaska Range, and were greeted by basecamp manager Lisa at the landing strip, we registered with her and picked up our cans of fuel from her and of course gave her the recommended gift of fresh fruit, a pineapple, as she is stuck on the glacier for the entire summer climbing season.
Basecamp wasn’t nearly as crowded at I expected, the latrines kept everything pretty clean. It was warm and clear at camp and we snagged a campsite recently vacated and there we were, surrounded by way, way too much gear and nothing left to do but climb. I guess I should mention that our bags were gigantic, we each had about 160lbs of equipment..it was a little absurd, but we decided a long time ago that we wanted to take 25 days worth of food and fuel so that we could hang in there through any big storms and still summit.
So, Day 1…we got up really early, 4 am…but it still took hours to get our act together. Its pretty cold...teens or single digits, but once the sun gets up its perfectly tolerable.We roped up, Norm, Ryland, and Ash teamed up. Dru and I took off first, about a half hour before the rest of the guys finally got moving. It was slow going with our packs and sleds each weighing 70lbs each. At first it was just slow, but after two miles it was painful, the waistbelt digging into the harness underneath it. The scenery was unbelievable, skiing up the Kahiltna glacier amongst such gigantic mountains in perfect weather. After about five hours we had finally covered the 5.5 miles to the base of Ski Hill and arrived at our first camp.
Dru and I began putting camp together. It wasn’t that crowded, maybe six or seven parties, and a large AAI (Alpine Ascents International) guided team who had just finished a double carry from basecamp. The guided groups did not like to overload their clients by attempting to do a ‘single carry’ hauling all the gear all at once, like we did, and opt to spread the gear shuttling over two days. Norm, Ry, and Ash arrived about an hour later, multiple problems plagued their progress on the final mile or two. Ash had leg cramps, possibly from dehydration and Norm has a gas can that leaked a little fuel into his sled. Luckily Norm caught the leak before his gear was saturated with gas.
We spent the rest of the day eating and gawking a the surrounding mountains.   The view from camp is unbelievable, staring up at the West Rib and Cassin Ridge, I guess it has finally settled in that I’m actually in Alaska, camped on the side of Denali. Granted, we still have many many more days to go, but so far I cannot believe our good luck with the weather. Today we all slept in and got a very slow start, which was alright considering our big day before. Today our plan was to carry to 9700ft but fortunately we had totally clear skies and we were able to climb to 10,300ft. Dru and I skied down roped up and Norm, Ry, and Ash skied down unroped. Skiing roped together was fine since the snow was calf deep powder and we had no weight in our sleds and packs!
Day 6-7 Well, I haven’t been that good about writing in my journal. The days have gone by quite quickly with very little slack time. Day 3 we moved up to 11.2k camp at the base of Motorcycle Hill. It was a grinder of a day skipping over our planned camp at 9.7, but the three rangers that have been traveling on our same schedule recommended that we move on to 11.2 because of better weather and it would help us with acclimatization. The camp site at 10,000ft is often mired in clouds and bad weather so we opted to climb high to get to the better weather at the 11,200ft camp. Again Dru and I arrive about an hour in front of the other rope team, Norm is not moving very fast. As we eat dinner that night we meet some of our neighbors, a group of guys who write into the local online climbing bulletin board , cascadeclimbers.com, are camped nearby...some of them have been on the mountain for weeks already as they accompanied Erden Eruc on a human powered climb of Denali, meaning no airplane on the approach. They keep busy by running along and diving into their sleds, racing them down the Main Street path that runs through camp. It is hilarious to watch.
Day 4 was an easy day, a quick ski back to 10.3 to retrieve our cache and move it up to camp. Norm, Ry, and Ash again chose to ski unroped while Dru and I tied in. It would’ve been fine skiing unroped but if a member of the team wanted the extra security, I wasn’t going to gripe. Ryland took off like a rocket downhill and caught a ski edge taking a nasty wipeout and tweaking his knee a little…it was a spooky reminder that we needed to be careful…we were a long way from home and had invested too much to be careless when skiing.
We had planned to rest on day 5, but on the recommendation of the rangers we made a carry around Windy Corner to beat the arrival of a snowstorm that was predicted to arrive the following day. It was a long day and frustrating.
Windy Corner is a slightly downward slanting ramp above an icefall that drops off the side of the mountain. Once we had traversed around the corner the temps were once again balmy and the wind stopped. As Dru and started sorting gear I dug the cache pit. Norm and company arrived about fifteen minutes later. Luckily we were quick with our caching and were on our way back down before the AAI group. Dru and I piggy-backed our sleds behind me so that Dru could keep tension on the sleds. As we descended the slopes below squirrel point the sleds drifted and bucked across the exposed blue ice. Motorcycle Hill wasn’t nearly as steep as it was seemed that morning and the well established bootpack made the trudge downhill much easier.
Today is our seventh day on the mountain, our sixth day away from basecamp. It’s a rest day, probably something that everyone needs. Tomorrow if the weather is good enough we’re hoping to pack up and move to Genet Basin at 14.2. I think everyone in the group will be ditching skis at 11k. I think I am fit enough to carry them up to 14k, but I don’t want Norm to bring his skis, he is moving slow enough that I don’t want him carrying the extra weight of his skis and after Ryland’s crash while returning to our cache at 10.3 a couple days ago I am realizing that we all need to be more careful. We’re here to climb not to ski. Not taking skis up to 14 was a tough decision…especially with the friendly climbing rangers inviting us to join them to do some skiing in the couloirs around Genet Basin…maybe next time.
Day 10,Storm day, we should’ve climbed to 16.2 and dropped off our cache abut the weather wasn’t good enough. I think we’ve got our first Alaska-scale storm. Cold, snow, and high winds. The igloo is particularly nice on days like today when I barely notice the 50mph gusts outside. The strongest gusts produce a cloud of powder snow that drifts up my igloo entry tunnel. At night I stake down a trash bag over the entry that keeps the spindrift out…and I make sure to keep a shovel inside with me to dig myself out in the morning. We arrived at Genet Basin camp on the 23rd. It was an ugly night, good weather but we didn’t get the Megamid (our single-walled, open floor cook tent) put up cause it was so late and dinner was only half prepared when Norm, our chef for the evening meal, decided that he was too tired to do anything but sleep. So we did our best to make do. The dinner was awful…undercooked angel hair pasta with a glue-like covering of starch…we had no water to spare to wash the cooked pasta, A topping of minced anchovies and pesto sauce rounded out the rather disgusting meal. It was not our finest hour and morale was not very high. We couldn’t finish all the food and in the chaos we managed to get pasta residue into all the pots, we had been fairly diligent about not getting any food in our snow melt pots so that our water didn’t taste like dinner….scrubbing the frozen remnants out of the pots was not fun the next morning.
Most of us slept well that night, the next day we took it easy and slept in until it was warmer, then hiked back down to 13.5 and carried the rest of our gear up to camp. The weather was fantastic, hot, sunny, and gorgeous. We’ve been camping next to Team SICK, from Tucson, Michael, Denelle, and Matt. We’ve had a lot of fun camping next to them as we’ve worked our way up the mountain. Now that we’re at 14.2 we’re eating dinner by late afternoon and are making sure that all the water bottles are filled and the dishes are cleaned before the sun dips below the West Buttress and the temperature plummets. We’ve also become a little more organized with chores making sure that we rotate the duty of getting up first to start the stoves and melt water for breakfast.
Yesterday was our rest day. I wrote a letter to Becky and passed it off to a team that was descending, and we made a chocolate cheesecake topped with animal cookies for Bill’s birthday, one half of the two man powerhouse team Biff and Bill. Biff and Bill are a hilarious duo, Biff from Virginia so he gets along quite well with our southern boys, Ash, Ry, and Norm.
Team SICK joined our group in building the igloo today so that the other boys got some extra breathing room in the tents and it also seemed like a good idea to have a secondary shelter in case Norm or another team member can't move higher on the mountain.
Today we were supposed to go to 16.3 to deposit our food and fuel cache but due to stormy conditions we only took gear as high as the base of the fixed lines. The bad weather up high is really bad…in the days before this storm the Llama high altitude helicopter has been making daily visits to camp picking up frostbitten climbers. A ranger even descended from 17,000ft the other day with a black nose.
Departing camp to run up a cache of gear, Dru lead, I was in the middle, and Norm was in the back. Unfortunately Norm hit the wall, after less than a 500 vertical foot gain from camp he said he was dry heaving and had to turn around. Dru caught up with Team SICK and tied in with them and Norm and I headed down. Team SICK was down to just Matt and Denelle, Michael was losing his vision and was already packed up and being escorted down with a large guided team who agreed to help him get back to basecamp. I took Norm back to camp and he rested. On our way down we passed by Ry and Ash on their way up, they took my food for me and carried it up to the cache.  I hope that when the weather clears, Dru, Ry, Ash, and I with Denelle and Matt can all go for the summit and Norm will not be too busted up about being left behind.
May 27th,Storm day, too snowy, too windy to do anything. So we all just sat around, napped, read, heard the evening weather forecast and it predicted there will be high winds tonight and camp, up to 60mph. We collapse the cook tent and pile snow blocks on top and tension the guylines on the tents anticipating a very nasty night. It is a quiet night inside my igloo but I am kept awake for a long time because my feet are numb and I don’t want to go to sleep until I can get the feeling back in my toes. Eventually the chemical packets I put in my socks kick in and my toes start to warm up.
May 28th,The forecasted storm does not materialize and the sky is perfectly clear today, quickly our thoughts change from running a cache of gear up to Washburns Thumb at 16,700ft to taking a crack at the summit instead. It takes a long time to organize gear and tent groups. Denelle and Matt agree to also go and we take their tent and Ash’s tent leaving my tent behind for Norm. It is almost 1pm before we are on our way, packs overloaded with gear since we have not had time to make all the deposits yet to a high cache as was planned.
Up to the base of the headwall. We wait for nearly an hour in the queue for our turn on the fixed lines. It seems as if everyone in 14 camp decided this morning to make a mad dash for the summit during our brief weather window. A thousand feet of jugging up the fixed lines is a sweaty chore that puts us at the top of the headwall at 16,200ft. The ridge is narrow in spots and very exposed, definitely the most frightening part of the climb for me. With a day pack and a lower altitude it would’ve been fine, but with a 60lb pack, a gallon of fuel swinging around outside my pack and the clean mountain can (our portable shitter) hitting my head, traveling the 1000vf on the ridge was an attention getter.
We didn’t hit camp until nearly 11pm, still light out but brutally cold. I quickly threw on my insulated pants, primaloft jacket and down jacket and synched the hood around my head. My feet were warm but I could feel that my socks were wet with sweat. Many teams didn’t even set up snow walls, the task of cutting blocks was too tough and so they take a chance that the weather would stay calm through the night. We cut enough blocks to encircle three sides of our camp just a couple feet high, it was better than nothing. I felt light-headed just bending over to cut blocks and rather than carry them we dragged them from our block quarry to camp on our sleeping pads. Once in the tents, I started getting dinner cooked. Ry, Ash, and I downed a few dehydrated meals, mine was a thai dish that was so spicy I was sweating despite the temperature hovering around -20. After dinner Ry and Ash passed out but I stayed up till 2am running the stove getting enough water for us tomorrow. Our wake up time of 5am came all too soon and the sputtering stove was back on.  Again, it was tiresome and cold work preparing to leave camp and we didn’t have full water bottles until 10am. Over night, Dru had developed a nasty gastro-intestinal problem. His body disagreed with his freeze-dried dinner and he was now forced to stay behind and deal with bad stomach cramps.
We were finally moving and were climbing well across the traverse towards Denali pass, we felt much better now that our packs contained so very little. We got caught behind a team of Korean climbers that were moving much slower than the rest of us, but eventually at the pass we were able to move around them. The wind picked up around the pass and we all put on our down jackets. It was sunny, but incredibly cold, all of us wore ski goggles and windproof facemasks, any exposed skin would’ve been frostbitten. Around 19,000ft Ryland’s pace began to slow considerably. He said he was just tired and we continued on. Finally arriving at the Football Field we ditched our packs and put on our primaloft pants. With a water bottle each and a couple cameras shoved into our parkas we continued on up the final 1000vf. Ascending the short face up to the summit ridge we ran into fellow Seattleites Eddie and Corey, and Erden, the hardman who biked to Denali from Seattle as a tribute to his recently deceased friend Yoran Kropp the man up biked to Everest from his home in Europe, climbed it then biked home.
We hit the summit ridge and slowly made our way up the last ¼ mile to the summit. By this time the sunny weather has begun to deteriorate, hazy skies…from what we hear is a forest fire in Siberia..or at least that was the rumor….We can just barely see Foraker in the distance by the time we reach the summit. Frustration from our slow pace turns to elation upon reaching the summit. We laugh and yell and hug, standing on the top of North American, looking down at the elevation marker, being there with Ry and Ash, who I started on this journey with years ago and here we are.
We quickly snap a few photos with team SICK and then we head down….its 6:45 pm and we have a long way to go. Shortly after getting off the summit ridge Ry says that he’s not just bonking…he thinks something is going very wrong, and he is losing coordination. We load him up on all the various meds we have...Diamox and Niphedipine, and give him water, I take his backpack and strap it to my own and we continue descending. Ryland is stumbling along out in front but we are making good time. By this time the sun is providing little warmth and a stiff wind is cutting across the glacier. My face feels sore and hot, hard to tell if its sunburn or windburn. We reach the top of Denali pass and safely make the descending traverse back to camp. Dru greets us at camp, he has recovered from his illness and has spent the day fortifying the snow walls and already has our stove running with a pot of water warming...he's awesome!
Again, I am up till late tending a fussy stove melting snow and I fall asleep well past midnight. I have developed an ugly cough and wheeze, I am spooked that it could be the start of HAPE, so I take some Nephedipine and Diamox….I am so dehydrated that the diuretic side-effects of Diamox never appear overnight, I don’t pee once that night.
The next morning we are up early but take our time getting out of camp. A woman from a tent next to us walks by our campsite to find some bathroom privacy behind the emergency equipment locker, just past our camp she falls to the ground and is unconscious…she has passed out. We scramble over to her and she awakens after a few tense moments. Her teammates for some reason are not in a rush to come to her aid, but eventually walk over and assist her back to camp…it is frightening how this altitude can affect all of us.
We leave camp at 1pm, the weather is still gorgeous but there is an increasing wind up high, we can see plumes of spindrift coming off the ridges above Denali pass, the best weather was yesterday, we are lucky we went for it when we did. Before we leave camp we already see many summit parties retreating because of the wind blasting off the upper mountain.
The descent is just as sketchy as the climb, Dru is leading and is moving well, too fast for me, my legs still feel weak and I’m still drained from the day before. Down the fixed lines and Dru and I unclip from them and start plunge stepping towards 14k camp. Then it happens, a solo German climber above Ash and Ryland slips and slides down the 45 degree ice slope and collides with Ash. Ash is knocked off his feet and the careens down the line towards Ryland who is hit. Ash is able to regain his footing but is in shock, Ry is on his back, face first down the hill. They are both screaming and Dru and I are too far away to offer immediate help. Ry coaches Ash through the self rescue setup that he needs to make using his ascenders. Dru climbs back to the base of the lines to tie them off, so Ry cannot slide off the end of the line, as I pound in a picket and set up and anchor for Dru and I in case Ry and Ash slide further. Eventually Ry is back on his feet and everyone continues the descent. Amazingly they say they are both fine. We were so lucky. Dru and I roll into camp and I immediately pull out my summit treat, a can of Pringles that I’ve carried all the way up to 14k. Ash and Ry are lagging behind and when they arrive in camp we get the bad news, Ash is worse off than originally thought. Hans’ (the solo German) crampons hit Ash’s thigh and gave him some nasty puncture wounds and his left knee has been torqued and is swelling. Ash is tended to by the rangers and is in good hands. I head for my tent and take a nap, its hot inside, the heat is a wonderful luxury. Norm wakes me at 6pm with a bowl of potato leek soup which I quickly scarf down.
Tomorrow we are hoping to descend all the way to basecamp. It will be a long haul but it will be good to be back at the KIA (Kahiltna International Airport) and that much closer to home.
We all slept in on the morning of the 31st, not entirely sure if we’d leave for basecamp or wait to see if the weather was good enough for Ash to fly out in the Llama helicopter. After discussing our dilemma with the rangers we decided to head down the mountain with Ash not carrying any of his gear. It made our loads awful even though we had managed to give away all our surplus food and fuel. Earlier that morning I loaded our extra food (50 man-days worth) and circled camp….the ice cream man…Much to my surprise just about all the food was taken. By 2pm we had broken camp and were on our way down. The crowds ascending the mountain were amazing, it seemed like there were 100 climbers heading for 14 camp that day. The descent was long and tiring, it was frustrating to peer 6000vf down from Windy Corner and see the tiny dots of 7800ft camp below. The only incident between the corner and Motorcycle Hill was a crevasse that I fell waist-deep into…with the bulk of my backpack I stopped at my waist and I rolled out of it, cursing and complaining but fine. Luckily Squirrel Hill had fresh snow on it covering the blue ice so our overloaded descent was almost tolerable.
At 11,000ft camp we dug up our cache, retrieved our skis, and managed to unload our extra group dinner that we had left there. We clicked into the skis and headed for 7800ft camp…and all hell broke loose. The perfect powder that we had had two weeks earlier was now replaced by heavily wind deformed sastrugai and breakable crust, and this was the first time our packs and sleds were fully loaded and pointing downhill. Ry and Norm skied unroped, Dru and I roped up, and Ash tied in with Danelle and Matt opting not to take the chance of skiing and screwing up his knee further. The going at first was slow but not impossible….we skied in deep snowplows until our quads were screaming and we had stop and rest. We actually passed Norm who repeatedly took diggers. Then as we neared the top of Ski Hill at around 9500ft the snow got worse and with Dru and I falling every 100ft or so (he didn't have ski boots, just his mtneering boots) our progress was painfully slow. I finally suggested we get off the skis, Dru had been thinking the same thing.
Once at Ski Hill camp, we all ate a little food and got back on the skis now that we had a relatively flat 5.5 miles to travel back to basecamp. I tried to keep my focus on that we were just a few hours from basecamp.. Our summit three day weather window had finally shut down, as we expected when we had seen massive lenticular clouds on Hunter and Foraker that morning. It was around 11pm, the sun had set and the blue-grey twilight of an Alaskan summer has arrived and clouds were socking in the glacier. For the next hours we crept along though an increasing wind, snow, and near total whiteout conditions barely able to follow the occasional ski track of the teams ahead of us. Both Dru and I were nearly out of water and both had sweat soaked feet that were blistering. I knew that my first-aid kit was so deeply buried in my pack that I didn’t want to stop to tend to my feet and we just pressed on through the dimly lit whiteout. It was 2am when we finally pulled into basecamp in some of the worst weather we had experienced in the past 18 days.
We staggered through camp looking for abandoned campsites, Finally we set up Ash’s tent and Norm fell in, Ash and Ry were quick to follow. Dru and I put up my tent and quickly fired up the stove. I was mesmerized by the speed and efficiency at which the stove roared to life as compared to how it functioned at 17,000ft. After we had had a little to drink we filled a liter of water and I took it over to Ash’s tent. They fell asleep without having any dinner, Dru and I stayed up and ate, I wanted to have some tea and hot food before going to sleep. Freeze dried sweet and sour chicken never tasted so good. Before going to sleep I put down almost two liters of tea. I went to sleep not expecting the weather to improve in the morning, but sure enough in the morning the clouds were lifting and soon Lisa was yelling for teams to assemble for their flights out. After the chore of putting my blistered feet back into my plastic boots I dug up the cache of food we left behind, eagerly looking forward to my breakfast of twinkies and scotch. Ry put on his hillbilly wig, fake teeth, Harley t-shirt and acidwashed jeans and ran around basecamp offering folks sips from his bottle of whiskey. I just relaxed in the warm morning sun and mixed my Glenlivet with fresh snow in my granddad’s Sierra cup that he had loaned me as a good luck charm and I reflected on what we had gone through. It was a strange feeling of complete satisfaction that I don’t think I had ever felt before. Years of dreaming and planning and so many hours getting ready for this trip, and now it was over. Camp was quickly broken down and after a few hours we were on our flights out with Jacque in his beaten down orange Cessna. The flight out was just as breathtaking as the flight in and stepping off the plane I tore off my plastic boots and walked around on my blistered bare feet on the warm pavement.
Dru was still waiting on the glacier for his flight out, Ash and Ry had flown in before us and were already at Bill’s house. Bill, of the Biff and Bill team, was a Talkeetna local who’d offered to put us up for the days we were in town before we flew home. Norm and I walked down to one of the many burger joints and loaded up. A coke, fries, and a large cheeseburger with bacon and avocado…it was perfect. We walked back to the airport shortly before Dru arrived with the rest of the gear and we loaded up Bill’s pickup, taking back a few pizzas and a lot of beer to his house. Showers, drinking, and eating at Bill’s house in the hills outside of Talkeetna kept us busy for the rest of the afternoon, then we headed into town for dinner, Elk steaks , more fries, and West Rib ‘Strong Ale’ a potent concoction from the local brew pub which was the beverage of choice. Then with a good buzz beginning we headed to the Fairview Inn, a great bar in the center of town in one of the oldest buildings, and the hub for post-climb celebrations. The festivities with our skinny, sunburned friends continued late in the night and it wasn’t until 7am the next morning that our crew was finally asleep back at Bill’s house.
Late the next morning we got up barely in time to catch breakfast in town….we then went back to Bill’s and spent the day cleaning house and filling many trash bags with empty bottles. Then we started to figure out what everyone was going to do…Dru was going to tag along with Danelle and Matt and go check out some sea kayaking outside of Anchorage, Ash and Ry were going to catch the train and head up to the visitors center at Denali National Park for a couple days, Norm and I wanted to go home…I had done what I came to do and I missed Becky. The next morning Norm and I hopped on the shuttle bus and headed for Anchorage. We switched our flight to an earlier departure and we quickly on our way home. On the flight home we were treated to a cloudless view of the tidewater glaciers of the Wrangell St.Elias Range, the Fairweather Range, the Coast Range, more mountains than I had ever seen in my life….so many other snowy peaks to explore.