I am proud of Micah for setting this goal and sticking with it even though it meant many hours of training each week on top of his already busy schedule. He made sure that his training had very little impact on his time with me and the kids as he woke up early before work to train, and he scheduled his long weekend runs around the kids' nap time. Some day, when the kids are a bit older and can comprehend what it means to climb a 20,310 foot peak (the highest in North America), they will be very proud of him as well.
When I was 18 I saw Denali off in the
distance for the first time while on a NOLS Alaska Mountaineering trip, and my
dream to climb the mountain was born.
After the course I asked one of the instructors, a young Alaskan native
who had yet to climb Denali, if she was looking forward to summiting while
instructing a NOLS trip. She responded
that the mountain meant too much to her to climb it without the company of good
friends and on her own terms. Her notion
of respect for the mountain inspired me to decide that, when I got my shot at
Denali someday, I wanted to climb it via a proud route – one that paid respect
to the mountain and one that made the most of realizing a dream.
Fifteen years later I found myself
balancing a demanding job and a busy family life with 2-year-old triplets, and the
idea of climbing Denali began to feel more like a pipe dream. Yet through the years I had continued to
climb and build trad, big wall, ice and alpine climbing skills that, in
combination, had me at a point where I was ready to take on a technical route
on Denali. But I was now facing a different kind of challenge: Balancing my
profession and my family life with trying to realize a long-time dream and my
passion to climb.
In December 2014 my
friend Mark and I committed to climbing Denali in June 2015 with the hope of
ascending the famed Cassin Ridge. We
felt we were up to the technical challenges of the route, but we knew we’d need
to train hard to be able to endure three full days on the route. I’d heard about the coaching programs offered
by Skyward Mountaineering and Mark and I decided some professional guidance was
worth the money, so we committed to it.
The four months of training that Steve House laid out for us was
demanding and at times pretty brutal. At
the start of June, after about 600 miles and 100,000 feet of elevation
gain/loss of running and pack carries (not to mention plenty of weight lifting
and climbing), I felt the fittest I’d been in many years and ready for Denali.
The period of time
between the day before I left for Denali to the day I returned home has
honestly been one of the wildest rides of my life. The range of events
and emotions I experienced in that period has only been second to having three
children brought into my life at once.
The day before we left
was my kids’ second birthday. It's amazing where they are now given that
they each started off life with six weeks to two months in the NICU. Despite
my excitement for climbing Denali, walking out the door and heading to the
airport the day after their birthday was so much harder than I thought it would
be.
We had 18 glacier days
planned for our trip, which was as much as I could afford vacation and
family-wise. We got held up in Talkeetna for the first three days because
it was dumping snow on the mountain. During that period my son had a
health problem manifest that very quickly led to a Leukemia diagnosis, but
shortly thereafter the diagnosis was changed to a benign auto-immune disorder.
The day that Jack received the Leukemia diagnosis was the worst of day of my
life as I spent the evening and night trying to come to grips with that would
mean for his life. I booked a flight
home as soon as possible. Fortunately, we got a better prognosis the following
day and my wife was incredibly supportive of me continuing on with the trip
after we got this much better news. Thankfully
most of this occurred while we were in Talkeetna waiting for the
weather to improve and we could communicate easily, rather than while we
were deep into the Alaska range.
We flew into Kahiltna
Base Camp four days after arriving in Talkneeta with amazing weather. However,
our 18 glacier days had now become 15. That amazing weather was forecasted to
persist for a long time, and it did. On day one we waited until the
evening and skied the ~5.5 miles to 7800 camp.
This was my second trip to the Kahiltna and I was psyched to be back,
loving every moment of the trip to 7800 camp.
On day two we carried to 11k camp and on day three we moved up. Day four was a quick trip to just past Windy
Corner where we cached some gear. We
enjoyed a fun and quick ski back down to 11k camp that night. Finally, on day five, we moved up to 14k camp
and started really putting our minds toward the task of climbing the route. The weather was amazing and we both felt
great. Mark was adamant we move at a conservative pace each day to
conserve energy and it worked – we were both never tired or sore from any of
the carries and we arrived at 14k camp fresh and full of energy.
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| Day 1 leaving Kahiltna Base Camp |
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| Day 1 at 7800 camp |
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| Day 3 at 11k camp |
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| Day 6 at 14k camp |
We acclimated to 16700 on
the West Buttress on day six, and we rested on day seven. On day eight we
planned to acclimate higher on the Buttress, possibly to the summit, and we
were looking at another good forecast. When we hit Denali Pass at 18200 that day,
though, we both felt headaches coming on so we decided we’d ascend 500 feet at
a time and re-evaluate. Before we knew it we were at the Football Field at
19200 and, with the gift of continuing perfect weather, we went on to the
summit.
We made it there in seven hours and some odd minutes. It was hard moving
from Denali Pass on up, but we felt great and the weather couldn’t have been
better – it was warm and there was almost no wind! Mark and I were glad
to have summited and to have it go as well as it did, but we knew that this
summit was just the tune up for the main event.
Now we hoped the good weather would persist.
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| Day 8 view of Denali at 17k |
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| Day 8 on top of Denali via the West Buttress |
On the way down from the
summit it started to snow and this turned out to signify the end of the awesome
weather and the start of the unstable (but still warm) weather. We rested
on day nine and talked with our meteorologist about the forecast (we’d hired
Chris Tomer out of Denver). He said the all-day-long blue skies were over
and we should expect afternoon snow squalls and low visibility until an
approaching large low-pressure system hit. If we didn't want to get
trapped by that we'd have to get back to Kahiltna base camp two days earlier
than planned.
So, there we were,
looking at launching for the Cassin on day 10 of what was now only 13 glacier
days. We contemplated the idea and the likelihood of being able to
approach, climb the route, and return to base camp to fly out in four days with
the current unstable weather and low visibility and no margin on the back end
due to the approaching storm. We both agreed we couldn't afford to get stuck in
the range because of the storm as we needed to get back to our families and
jobs.
Nonetheless, we decided
we'd launch for the route in the afternoon of day 10 and see how things went
with the weather. If the weather seemed
like it was working in our favor then we’d go for it. One rest day removed from our Buttress summit
acclimatization was not ideal, but we felt remarkably good – the four months of
hard training was working well for us. Our plan was to head to the West
Rib Cutoff and down the Rib (we'd been talked out of the Seattle Ramp by
several rangers and other climbers who'd just done it). As we moved
closer to the Cutoff the clouds started to envelope us. After making it to the cutoff we waited a
while, and with no improvement in conditions we decided to bivy there and wait
for better visibility.
The following morning we could see up the mountain but everything below us was socked
in. At this point we were at day 11 of 13 and we felt our chance of a
legitimate attempt on the Cassin had just slipped away.
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| Day 10 Bivy at the West Rib Cutoff |
We pondered our options
given our current situation and decided we’d head up the Upper West Rib. Once we made that decision, we moved with the
lightness of making a wise choice in the mountains, but the weight of knowing
we wouldn’t be climbing our objective. It’s
a feeling I’ve felt before – knowing I’ve prepared mentally and physically for
a climb but wouldn’t be getting the ascent – and it wasn’t any more welcomed
this time around. We made good time up
the Rib and we were somewhat surprised by how easy the route felt. We summited again, then descended to 17k camp and spent the night there. We were tired from the day, thankful for
another summit via a great route, but deep down we were sad that we didn’t get
the Cassin.
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| Day 11 climbing up the West Rib |
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| Day 11 on top of Denali via the West Rib |
On day 12 we descended to
14k, rested during the day, packed up and left early in the morning on day 13, and then
flew out late-morning on day 13. The storm hit the evening of day 14
and I later learned that TAT didn't fly again until after our scheduled flight
out of Anchorage. Had we gotten stuck by the storm we would have missed
our return flights home. That offered me
some consolation, but it also left me wondering what could have been if we’d
gone for it.
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| Day 12 resting during the ski down |
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| Day 13 on the plane about to leave the glacier |
I've analyzed our
decisions quite a bit since leaving. The uncertainty we had in our
ability to climb the route in three days with less than ideal weather and the
uncertainty we had in the storm's arrival and strength I think is due to our
general lack of climbing and weather experience in Alaska. This led us to
be conservative decision-wise and it meant our shrunken time window wasn't
enough.
All said and done, though,
I believe we had a trip many would kill for.
We had two summits in 13 days with outstanding weather for the first
eight days, and pretty good weather for the remainder. I don't think that
happens very often on Denali. I went to the mountain one person and I came
back another as I endured both mental and physical challenges with the mountain
itself, but also the emotional torment of being away from my family during my
son’s health issues. The trip cemented
my desire to adventure in the alpine, but it also affirmed that that desire is
secondary to my family and my relationships.
