This article is the 3rd in a series of trip reports from ski mountaineering on Denali in May of 2010 . Click to read Part 1 and Part 2 of the adventure.
I can’t emphasize enough the importance of feeling comfortable and being competent with snow camping skills on
Denali. You should be in good shape, dial in your food, know how to use your gear, and be able to safely ascend and descend the mountain, but if you can’t snow camp you might as well skip the whole trip. Melting water, building snow walls, and making sure you sleep on a flat surface are just a few of the more important steps necessary for a happy trip.
After going pretty big with our snow walls, digging a latrine, and stomping out spots for our tents we were ready for some grub. The cook tent was another new thing for me on this adventure as they provide a great place to hang out during storms, and find shelter from snow, wind, and sun when you’re stuck at camp. Complete with storage cubbies for water bottles and accented with foam pads so your butt doesn’t freeze, the cook tent is mandatory for comfort on the mountain.
The push to the base of ski hill would be the only single carry day we engaged in on Denali. Of course there’s a few ways to get up the mountain, but when you’re heading up the West Buttress, which most parties on the mountain use for their summit attempt, most people will double carry. After our single carry effort to the base of ski hill our team started employing the double carry technique where we’d wake up, carry a load to our next camp, ski down, and sleep where we had an already established camp. This allows acclimatization, which is another big necessity on Denali. You’ve probably heard it before, climb high, sleep low, and that’s the point when you double carry. Your body works hard to get you high, and you sleep low regaining energy and getting more oxygen into your blood.
The following morning we packed up camp and headed to the base of Motorcycle Hill, which is known as 11 camp due to its elevation of 11,000 feet. The winds that had showed themselves two days earlier were gone, and the scenery was magnificent. We were also all stoked to have gotten some skiing in, and equally as stoked that the mellow turns were nothing but blower powder (
May 4th Powder Journal Entry). It was super cold, as we had expected, but everyone seemed in high spirits.
The next day started a bit awkward. It was clear so we wanted to use the good weather day to head towards the next camp at 14,200 feet, but after three solid days of lugging a lot of weight around we questioned if a down day was in order. Down days are not a norm with this crew, but then again Denali is not the normal ski objective. While it seemed like a down day would be a good call, one member of the team that proved gun-ho the whole trip was adamant that he wanted to go up and help the team continue its progression.
This would be the beginning of a little bit of tension that our group faced on the trip, and I mention it just to forewarn that when you’re living in such close proximity with people, you’re cold, tired, and working really hard every day, pressures get compounded and it’s really important to voice concerns and anything on your mind to avoid issues higher on the mountain.
So the call was made. Three guys went up, and that left Ming and I at 11 camp for a rest day. Ming really needed a rest day. We flew into Kahiltna Base without him because he had finished up the Points North season in Cordova, flown to the mountain teamed with another guide Kip Garre, and both dialed ski mountaineers had been trying to make their way up the notoriously technical Mt.Hunter in hopes of skiing a route that still has yet to see any tracks.
I could have made the push with the rest of our crew, but was honestly much happier to take a day off from shuttling loads… even though I still ended up going for a quick ski out from camp, just because I could, and just because it was perfect powder (
May 6th Powder Journal Entry).
The team cached at 13,500 feet, a commonly used spot to shuttle gear, and was able to safely and easy negotiate the crux of the lower portion of the West Buttress, Windy Corner. The next day we shuttled our loads up to the cache spot and found Squirrel Hill (a tricky ice prone area) and the Corner reasonably safe. A few obvious crevasses to pass and we were skiing back to 11 camp in a few hours (
May 7th Powder Journal Entry).
Everyone was feeling strong, and the next day we were able to again pass Windy Corner, dig up the cache, and stroll into a sparsely populate 14 camp. Usually this place is overflowing with parties making their way up the mountain, but because we were so early in our mission there were only a few teams at camp. There’s a large Park Service camp up there, and the rangers were happy to greet some new people.
However, the information shared with us wasn’t quite as jovial as the general vibe of Ranger Loomis. “Ice”. Plain and simple. We were there to ski, but blue ice was strewn all about the mountain. You get glimpses of the higher part of the mountain from different vantage points while climbing up, even way back at Kahiltna base, and while we knew there was ice, it wasn’t until this moment when we all had to face the facts and discuss our options.
The conversation wasn’t too positive, but we tried. Everyone had an opinion, some stronger than others. It was good for us all to get thoughts off our chests, but in the end it didn’t matter because things change so quickly on the mountain that no one knew what the next week or two would bring anyway; it was really all speculation.
Stay tuned for the rest of the story! Part 4 coming soon...
That's Our Opinion. What's Yours?
