Sorry to leave you guys hanging…. here is the final installment of my Denali journal…
May 20th – Day 14 and Day 6 at 14 camp Another weather day. I can tell that Mike really wanted to move today but looking at the summit you can tell it’s the right call to stay at 14k camp. The clouds are fiercely swirling around the summit. It’s so deceiving since it’s sunny and not too windy here at 14k camp. Several people on our team are starting to think about our timeframe. We’re starting to run out of time to make the summit.
I spoke to Bruce (a team next to us) and they said that a climber is missing on the ridge. He left his 3 teammates at 4am yesterday to summit and ski down the Orient Express. I talked to that guy a few days ago. He was from Colorado and trying to decide if he was going to ski down the Express or the Messner. He sounded a little crazy but I just assumed he knew what he was getting into. As of noon today, he still hadn’t returned. He didn’t have any overnight supplies – bag, stove, or tent. His roommates and rangers are looking for him but it doesn’t sound good for this guy. 2 weeks on the mountain and the potential for 2 deaths. That’s high considering it’s still early in the season.
Two of our guides are descending to 11k to pick up some food today, which makes me think that Mike is preparing for a few more days at this camp.
I met a cool guy named Rob from CA who is retired guide. He tried to climb Denali 5 years ago but didn’t make it due to weather. The next year he climbed Everest. He said he thought Denali was harder because you have to carry such big loads up this mountain. The temps are comparable though. Always good to know that your personal endeavors are similar to climbing the world’s tallest mountain.
May 21st – Day 15 and Day 7 at 14 Camp I woke up at 8am with the severe urge to pee, but my pee bottle was full so I had to venture outside. The sun hadn’t crested the summit yet and the winds were shaking the tent. I wasn’t looking forward to the mad dash to the plywood toilet. The temperatures weren’t that cold, despite my first thought, but the winds made it pretty chilly on my bare legs as I attended to nature’s call. There were only 2 people stirring in camp at that hour, both of them out for the same reason that I was. The clouds covered 17k ridge and snow was blowing through camp. It wasn’t a complete white out, but visibility was less than ¼ mile. It reminded me of a scene from the planet Tatooine in Star Wars – desolate. Small igloo type structures. Warnings not too go out after the sun sets. Hell, we even have sand people looking creatures with climbers behind face masks, googles, and nose guards. The only thing missing is a sand cruiser to carry our gear.
Needless to say, with this weather we aren’t moving up today. Another day to read Atlas Shrugged.
May 22nd – Day 16 Today is our “up or down” day. We decided last night that if we don’t move up to 17k today, we will have to descend.
I couldn’t sleep all night just thinking about the possibility of descending without the summit. We went to bed around 11p and I lay awake in my sleeping bag until 3am. I finally caught a few winks of sleep but woke up again around 6am just to see what the weather was like. The guides said they would wake us around 7am if we were headed up. At 6am I was awake just listening for the sounds of stoves in the cook tent. 7am came and went without the sound of stoves. 8am came and went as well. Finally, around 9am, I gave up hope that we were going up. Joe and I sat up in our tent and looked at each other…. Knowing what it meant to sleep in. Joe said, “No regrets” and I said, “just a lot of disappointment” as I teared up. I am definitely disappointed that we didn’t summit, but I am still incredibly pleased about the trip.
I still don’t understand why we didn’t move up. The weather was beautiful at 14k, but the winds were supposed to be 25 – 35mph. Mike says he doesn’t want to move up in winds, but I can’t imagine the winds getting any lower than that on this mountain.
Regardless….we’re descending. We left 14k at 1p after some effort to get camp packed up. I was not looking forward to the 8-9hr slog down to basecamp. The weather was rather warm and I left camp in minimal baselayers. Once past Windy Corner, it started snowing. Descending Motorcycle Hill was a little dicey in the limited visibility. We picked up our cache at 11k camp and prepped our sleds for the hike out. I stole some of Steve’s cache since I didn’t have much lunch food left and I was afraid we might get stuck at basecamp waiting a few days for a plane out.
We continued down the Kahiltna in a complete white out. Pete had a GPS but was following wands on the trail. The sight was very surreal. We would pass thru abandoned camps with nothing but snow walls. It looked so much different than just 16 days earlier.
Snow conditions got a little softer further down on the glacier. Several crevasses had opened up since we pass thru on our way up the mountain. Any area with an ash layer (from Mt Redoubt) had melted wide open like a cancer in the snow. I would hate to see what the glacier looks like in July if 3 weeks in early May can make that big of a difference.
Finally, we arrived at the base of Heartbreak Hill and learned all about its namesake. The planes overhead, which previously were coming in frequently, had started to subside. Just as I was on the brink of giving up, we crested Heartbreak Hill and rolled into camp. Pete checked with Basecamp Lisa as we set up the tents. The last flights ended at 9pm and we rolled in at 9:15pm.
I crawled into the tent because I was freezing. I soaked my baselayers during the hike and once the sun set, I was freezing in my wet clothes. We were parched from the long hike out, but none of us had water left in our bottles. Pete fired up the stove to melt water and cook dinner. Finally, around midnight we had a dinner of broccoli and cheese rice. We all sat outside talking about the climb and eating. It was almost like sitting around a campfire surrounded by Hunter and Foraker. It was a great way to spend the last night on the glacier.
May 23rd – Day 18 We skipped breakfast and caught the first flight out. Dennis from Hudson Air picked us up and flew us through One Shot Pass on the way out. Of course, the flight was amazing.
We landed in Talkeetna around 10am and was amazed by the green colors and the smells. We unpacked our gear and dried it out in the sun. I walked into town to get my first cup of real coffee. We hung out at the hangar most of the day and had lunch with our pilots, Jaques and Dennis, at Mountain High Pizza.
Around 6pm, we finally headed into town for our first showers. I went into the bathroom and took off my clothes. It was very weird to see my body in the mirror. It was the first time I saw myself in 18 days. My face was very dark, but my body is pasty white. I hopped in the shower and soacked in every last drop of warm water. I washed my hair several times since it was well on its way to developing dreadlocks.
