| Report Type | Full |
| Peak(s) |
Denali - 20320 |
| Date Posted | 03/03/2018 |
| Modified | 08/19/2023 |
| Date Climbed | 06/15/2017 |
| Author | bmcqueen |
| Denali - Part 2 of X (to be continued) |
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Denali - Part 2 of ____ (to be continued)My first attempt on Denali was in May of 2014. That guided trip ended in disappointment when we mistimed our move from 14,000' camp ("14 Camp") to 17,000' camp ("17 Camp") and missed the best summit day of the 2014 season by a day. I found it quite enjoyable to write about that trip in Exposed. Since I doubt there will ever be a second book and our 2017 attempt is worthy of remembrance, I figured I'd write up the 2017 attempt in a trip report. Some of this may well show up in next year's Accidents in North American Mountaineering - we shall see...  The Team Mareshah Duncan (Colorado Springs) Jomah Fangonilo (Denver) Katie Katalin (Colorado Springs) Rob Miller (Southern California) Joe Root (Colorado Springs) Yours truly (Denver) Planning, planning and then more planning... When I got back in 2014, I had pretty well decided that I didn't want to go back to Denali on another guided trip. There are plenty of pros of going guided, but having missed the best summit window by a day, and having dilly dallied on the lower glacier too long on that trip, I wanted the flexibility of having a smaller team of well trained, acclimatized teammates such that we could call our own shots on the mountain. Rob and I shared a rope to the summit of Mt. Rainier and went on the 2014 Denali trip together. Our friendship had grown since our chance meeting on Rainier and we had unfinished business on Denali that we hoped to finish together. In August of 2016, we started recruiting the team and planning in earnest. In the Colorado community, there start to be rumblings of who is looking at Denali for the following year at about this time. Lots of Facebook and 14ers.com private messages are exchanged to gauge interest. I heard that a couple of strong Colorado Springs climbers, Mareshah Duncan and Joe Root, were looking at going. Mareshah is a police officer and worked nights at the time, so she and I had more 4:30 AM FB chats than you can imagine as I was getting up in the morning and she was wrapping up her work day. Mareshah had a friend that had gone to Aconcagua with her that was also interested. That made five of us that were pretty solidly in. We continued to have discussions with a couple other folks, targeting a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 8 for our team. In early December, Ryan Kushner messaged me and said it was supposed to be -40 wind chill on Kelso Ridge the next day and would I like to come play in the cold with him? Ah, yeah! Jomah messaged me the same day and asked if I was getting out the next day, so I invited him along. I had never been on a mountain with Jomah, but knew him well from the monthly happy hours and knew he was an accomplished climber and skier. Ryan's Jeep broke the next morning on his drive to the Bakerville exit, so it ended up being just me and Jomah. For some odd reason, I decided to bring my skis along that day and skin up the road. Melissa laughed loudly when I told her my plan and asked if I really wanted to make my first mountain impression on Jomah on my skis (it went as well as you might expect it to have gone). Jomah and I froze our asses off that day, but summited nonetheless. Jomah got his first taste of windburn "right in the money maker" with triangular marks on each cheek. Afterwards, we grabbed food and a beer at Tommy Knocker in Idaho Springs where we talked more seriously about Denali.   Jomah's initial responses on whether he was interested in joining us on Denali were less than committal. Sort of like the girl in Something About Mary in response to Ben Stiller's prom date proposition. When I continued to push and ask what it would take for him to be in, he responded, "Yeah...I guess I'm not very good at commitment....I'm in." I think the next day, Jomah had his Scarpa Phantom boots and a stove purchased. He began studying the mountain in hopes of skiing from the summit. It looked like we were pretty well set with a team of six and I was really happy with how things were coming together. We wanted to submit our permit applications by the end of January at the latest - the first real cash outlay of the trip. I was nominated to be our team leader for the permit application, so I pulled the trigger January 18th and filed mine as the leader, indicating a climbing party of six. Our team name - Second Breakfast Club (for so many awesome reasons). Jomah no longer had the slightest hesitation and submitted his application the same day. The National Park would not review or approve our permit until all six individual applications were in. Within a week, Rob, Mareshah and Joe all got theirs submitted. Then we got bad news. Mareshah's friend's time off request in the military had been denied. She couldn't go. Well....CRAP. We had all really liked the idea of having a team of six. Two rope teams of three. Three tents of two on the lower glacier and two tents of three at 17 Camp. Should we quickly try to wrangle up a new sixth teammate or should I call the Park Service and change our permit application down to a team of five? We decided to each put out a couple of feelers to highly qualified folks that we knew. There was no way we were willing to settle for a second class teammate - it had to be someone good or we would go with five. Mareshah reached out to local Colorado Springs legend, Katie Katalin, who is about as much of a celebrity on Pikes Peak as I think there is (her current streak as of Feb 2018 is 43 straight months with at least one Pikes Peak summit). Katie hadn't done much outside of Colorado and didn't really have the cold weather gear needed for Denali. Her endurance is incredible though, so we thought we might be able to make it work. Lots of phone calls later and with great gear support from Caroline Moore and Kelly Greaser, Katie was on board to join the team and submitted her permit application on February 2nd. We divvied up group gear assignments, set training days (Rob flew out from California twice to train with us at altitude) and each worked on our fitness and gear. Mareshah and Joe were both nursing lingering injuries (knee and ankle, respectively), but both were doing everything in their power to get to 100%. The spring flew by and soon enough, departure day arrived. Day 0 - Saturday 6/3 - Travel from Denver to Anchorage With all six of us gathered at a nice hostel called Base Camp Anchorage, we began the final preparations for the climb. We took over the entire yard of the hostel to sort gear, checking to make sure we had all the group gear we were supposed to have. We identified where we had duplicates that could be left behind and the couple of things that we would need to stop for the next day on the way to Talkeetna. A great decision we made was using Exposure Alaska for our food. With years of experience supporting experienced Denali climbing teams, they prepared and packaged for us all of our meals, sorted by heavier items to eat down low all the way to lighter high carb foods for up high. Everything was extremely tasty!  Day 1 - Sunday 6/4 - Travel to Talkeetna and Fly onto the Kahiltna Glacier After picking up our Clean Mountain Canisters ("CMCs") and doing our ranger briefing with the National Park Service, we headed to the airport to weigh our gear (~825 pounds between the six of us) in hopes of flying onto the glacier that evening. There are frequently times when the planes can't fly to the glacier, so some teams lose days out of their itineraries before even getting to the mountain. We were relieved when they told us we would be flying on about 6:00 PM. Good, right on schedule. If you can keep from hurling from the movement of the tiny plane, the views are amazing heading towards Denali.   The lower glacier gets hot during the day in June, with snow bridges becoming less stable. Travel in the heat of the day is therefore not recommended. We had to decide whether to stay that night at Base Camp by the airstrip or immediately pack up and push through the night to our 7,800' camp. We opted to settle into Base Camp for the night and plan for an early morning departure the next day while everything was still nice and frozen. We picked a nice heavy (both in weight and calories) meal to eat at Base Camp that night, dug a deep hole for our Base Camp cache (the lower glacier can fluctuate wildly in June with snowmelt or snowfall) and settled in for the night.   Day 2 - Monday 6/5 - Move to 7,800' Camp and Night Cache to 9,500' We got up early, had breakfast and prepared to move from Base Camp to 7,800' Camp, a journey of about 6 miles that starts with the 700' descent of Heartbreak Hill before regaining that elevation and more to arrive at 7,800' on the glacier. This is the longest mileage day on the climb, and the sleds and packs are both heavy with lots of food, fuel and gear for the upper mountain.    Just before the 7,800' camp, a solo climber had fallen into a crevasse, so there was a rescue underway to extricate him. It was a bit sobering seeing a helicopter so early in our trip and served as a good reminder on why we were traveling roped and why we had practiced our z-pulley crevasse rescue scenarios so many times at home. Once we arrived at camp, we set to work on getting our tents set up - Mareshah and I had matching red 3-man Hilleberg's while Jomah and Katie shared a Mountain Hardwear Evo 3-man. We also had a Black Diamond Mega Mid that we used as our dining tent (highly recommended!). Jomah established himself quickly as our dining tent designer. He would tell us where to dig out the benches and orchestrate our efforts to have a pleasant place to sit for a meal. Working hard on the dining tent in the microwave oven of the lower glacier proved to be quite hot though, so he naturally stripped down to his undies to work...   After dinner, Rob, Jomah, Katie & I volunteered to go put a cache in at 9,500' to lighten our loads a bit for the following day while Joe & Mareshah did the dishes and got our things organized for tomorrow. Jomah and Rob attempted to ski down ski hill at the conclusion of the cache and found that it isn't named ski hill because the skiing is any good... Day 3 - Tuesday 6/6 - Move to 10,000' Camp We planned to move up to 9,800' camp, but frankly went right past it since it was currently abandoned with some faint relics of wind walls and tent platforms completely filled in with drifted snow. That mistake turned out to be a blessing. Our camp just over 10,000' turned out to be our favorite camp of the entire trip. We had it all to ourselves (a far cry from the crowded and dirty 7,800' camp we had just left). Jomah and the snow saw really found their groove at this camp and we enjoyed amazing views of Kahiltna Dome.       I was realizing that being on a self-guided trip was a lot different than my prior guided trip experience. There was always something to do, from getting stoves fired to melt snow for water to getting weather reports from back home and communicating our progress to friends and family. I had brought my iPad with a few movies on it, but so far, we had no downtime to enjoy them. I was doing pretty well each night to quickly journal our progress in my note pad. Our team was getting along great though - very nice chemistry and we were enjoying each other's company in this amazing place. Day 4 - Wednesday 6/7 - Move to 11,000' Camp ("11 Camp") The weather was still great when we woke up, so we prepared to make our move to 11 Camp. This move had some significance in that it would be our last "single carry" and it would be our last day in our snowshoes. At breakfast, we all checked our oxygen saturation - everyone 92 or higher - very good. We were acclimatizing well. We also got word that our fellow Colorado team, consisting of Kevin Baker, Dave "Hoot" Gibson and Derek Rutelege, was on the mountain. Kevin and I had communicated regularly during our planning and we both had InReach devices, so we could communicate with each other on the mountain. As we climbed to 11 Camp, we entered the clouds that I'm now convinced are permanently trapped at 11 Camp. Visibility was not great and a light snow was falling as we set up our camp.   Day 5 - Thursday 6/8 - Cache Above Windy Corner It's always snowing at 11 Camp - icky wet snow that makes you wet, even through your Gore-Tex. We decided to go ahead and put a cache in around Windy Corner. We switched to crampons at this point, having cached our snowshoes, garbage and lower mountain clothes at 11 Camp.    The crevasses and snow bridges past Windy Corner get your attention for sure. None of us punched through a snow bridge more than knee deep, but even knee deep feels like a lot when you realize your leg is hanging down into the void with the weight of your body, your pack and your sled on a thin bridge of snow. Day 6 - Friday 6/9 - Rest Day The crappy wet snow continued all day on Friday, so we took our first rest/weather day of the trip. We were right on schedule and feeling great. Jomah and I took a fieldtrip back down to our 10,000' camp to try to find a missing CMC (turned out it was in Rob's vestibule - we did score some extra fuel while we were out though from a group heading down). We finally pulled out the iPad and had a matinee showing of Bring it On.   Day 7 - Saturday 6/10 - Move to 14 Camp After two days at 11 Camp, we were VERY ready to get out of there even though the weather was a bit questionable for a move day. There was 6" of fresh powder and we were breaking trail the whole way. Move days are hard anyway because you've got the tents, sleeping bags and everything else you own whereas cache days are much lighter with only your extra layers in your pack and just the things like extra fuel and food in your sled. I led up Motorcycle Hill and Squirrel Hill, but I was getting slower and slower. Jomah offered to take a turn in the lead and break trail at the Polo Field. I gladly took him up on it. We were all exhausted by the time we arrived at 14 Camp that night, so we just had a quick dehydrated meal for dinner and went to bed.  Day 8 - Sunday 6/11 - Back Carry, Rest and Construction Day Sunday we descended down to retrieve our cache at 13,500', then focused our efforts on constructing a high quality cook tent since 14 Camp would be our home for a while. 14 Camp is a pretty nice place actually. It is shielded from the wind and sits above the cloud deck most of the time. The views of Mt Hunter and Mt Foraker are spectacular. Jomah began excitedly scoping ski lines from Denali's summit.   Day 9 - Monday 6/12 - Cache up the Fixed Lines Everything is harder at 14,000'. Walking, cooking, shoveling tent platforms, sleeping - everything. Joe fought Cheyne-Stokes breathing during the night, but still felt like he could do the carry up the fixed lines with us. We weren't in a huge hurry, but everything is just harder. Have I mentioned that? Alpine starts are non-existent on Denali (an early morning is walking by 9:00 AM), but our 2:14 PM departure from camp for our carry was later than we wanted. Our goal was to put our cache in all the way to 17 Camp to avoid having to add our cached gear to already full packs on move day.  We had kept the same rope teams since the start - me, Rob and Jomah on one; Mareshah, Katie and Joe on the other. My rope team led out of camp that day and climbed the nice snow to the base of the fixed lines, crossed the tricky bergschrund, and ascended the fixed lines up the headwall to the start of my favorite part of Denali - 16 Ridge. Mareshah, Katie and Joe joined us at the top of the fixed lines, then we set off again.    Rob, Jomah and I enjoyed the amazing scenery of 16 Ridge for another hour or two before coming around a corner above 17 Camp. It was noticeably colder at 17,000', so we threw our puffy jackets on and started to dig our cache hole. Things that are hard to do at 14,000' are even harder to do at 17,000'. Once we had our stuff in the cache hole, we waited for our teammates, but the minutes kept going by without them arriving. We tried to radio, but lacked line of sight and couldn't get them. It was too cold to stand there, so we filled in the cache hole, marked it with wands and turned to start back down the ridge. We figured we would either see them still heading up the ridge, in which case we would let them know where the cache was, or thought maybe they had decided to cache lower on the ridge for some reason. We got back to the top of the fixed lines, but still hadn't caught them, so we descended and finally caught up with them at the base of the fixed lines. Joe's Cheyne-Stokes the night before had been a harbinger to him feeling the altitude pretty badly today. In addition, his bad ankle was not at all happy about the exposed side hilling on the ridge. Knowing that there was more exposed side hilling above 17 Camp on the Autobahn, Joe had decided not to cache his gear. Katie and Mareshah dug a hole and cached theirs a little ways up 16 Ridge just below Washburn's Thumb, then they had headed down. We all headed down to camp, not arriving back there until 12:23 AM. It had been a long day.  Day 10 - Tuesday 6/13 - Rest & Recovery Day After the long night, we all needed some rest and recovery. We focused on hydration and letting our bodies further acclimatize. I spent some time with Joe to see if he was up for giving it another try Wednesday. He thought a lot about it and decided that he would hang back at 14 Camp. While disappointed, we all respected his decision. Our plan had always been to take two tents to 17 Camp and leave one at 14 Camp, so it wasn't really a big deal for him to hang out there when we made our move and eventual summit bid. Kevin Baker's team would be arriving at 14 Camp while we were gone, so Joe would have some company at least. Weather reports from back home were indicating that Thursday looked to be a good summit day, so our spirits were high and we were excited to move to 17 Camp on Wednesday in preparation. Day 11 - Wednesday 6/14 - Move to 17 Camp Aside from summit day, moving day from 14 Camp to 17 Camp is probably the hardest day on Denali. The sleds stay at 14 Camp, so everything you own is on your back and it is heavy. This is why we've been training with so much weight for the past eight months. Our move was a touch more complicated since Mareshah and Katie's cache was on the ridge, not at 17 Camp with ours. All five of us grabbed stuff from their cache to make sure that we could get everything in one trip and not lose a day for a required back carry. I still found 16 Ridge to be quite enjoyable even with the heavy pack.   We arrived at 17 Camp at 17,200' and got our twin red Hillebergs set up. It was a very pleasant evening (for 17,000') and we spent some time checking out the famed Autobahn that angles up to Denali Pass.   Day 12 - Thursday 6/15 - Summit Day None of us felt great at 17 Camp. That's normal, but no fun. We woke up at 7:00 AM, thinking we'd launch for the summit between 9:00 AM and 10:00 AM. It is usually about a 12-hour round trip to the summit and back to 17 Camp. Daylight is not an issue in Alaska and it is less than a week before the summer solstice. When we woke up, we looked out of the tent at the upper mountain. The wind was blowing up there as evidenced by the snow flying off. That wasn't going to work. I checked in with our weather guy back in Denver. He said today is still our day to summit, but to sit tight and the winds should die down. We only brought three days of food and fuel with us, determined not to be one of those teams that spends a week at 17 Camp without ever getting a shot at the summit. We only moved up Wednesday because we thought Thursday looked good. If we needed to wait, we'd rather wait at 14 Camp where it's reasonably comfortable.  I asked if Friday might be better and the response was "no - you've got precip moving in Friday. Today's your day - just sit tight for a while." We tried to get food in us and focused on hydrating. Finally about 1:30 PM, the winds seemed to be dying down and we started gearing up to go. Mareshah and Katie were moving a bit more slowly and knew their pace on the mountain was going to be different from ours, so we had agreed that each rope team would go for the summit when they were ready. Rob, Jomah and I launched for the summit at 3:00 PM, setting ourselves up for a 3:00 AM return to camp. The first obstacle was the Autobahn. Like the fixed lines up the headwall, the National Park Service looks the other way and allows the guide services to place pickets as fixed protection along this stretch to prevent them from having more SAR (and the other R - Recovery) missions. We asked the rangers at our briefing in Talkeetna if the fixed pro was in place on the Autobahn. "yep - fixed pro spaced out so that you should always be attached to the mountain in two different places" was the response. That was reassuring. At the base of the Autobahn, I clipped us into the first picket and began climbing up the big ascending traverse. We were initially behind a very slow team. It was painful. Finally, they let us pass and we started moving a little more quickly. There were no pickets to clip into, however. It had snowed enough recently that they must have been buried and not re-excavated yet. Our crampons were biting well, so we kept moving despite not having the usual protection. A fall here would be bad although we would have had a fighting chance at self-arrest. Thankfully, we didn't test that. As we neared Denali Pass, I started to feel the altitude more and more. Even though I've got my rest step down to a science after all these years, they weren't feeling so restful. My rhythmic pauses between steps got longer. Jomah called out encouragement from the back, "you got this Brad!". I saw a rocky outcropping just below Denali Pass that looked like a good spot for a break and plodded along until we got there. It turned out to not be all that sheltered from the wind (which I would estimate in the 15-25 mph range - normally not a big deal, but at 18,000' on Denali, it was enough to be annoying and make it colder than you'd like). We grabbed a snack and had some water, but it was soon apparent that we shouldn't linger long or we'd risk getting too cold. We geared up again and traveled the remaining short distance to Denali Pass. A right hand turn and we were heading up a slightly steeper section of ridge on snow in perfect shape for crampons. The wind was blowing a bit harder now that we were on the ridge and above the pass. None of us was loving it, but we kept moving up the hill another few hundred feet. Then Jomah stopped the rope from the rear. "Guys, I f@#ked up at that last break! I lost a mitten." he tells us holding up his hand to show us just his thin glove liner. "Where is it?" I yelled back. "Can we get it?" He replied, "nah man, it's gone. It's almost to the Pacific Ocean. I've been trying to keep my hand warm, but it's not going to go." Well crap. Thoughts went through my head quickly on what our options were. Can we send him down alone, unroped and unprotected down the Autobahn? Can we ask him to wait at Denali Pass for us? I had no idea how much farther it was to the summit. We were at nearly 18,500', about 1,800' short of the summit. We had been doing about 650-700 vertical feet per hour so far on summit day. That's three more hours to the summit IF we can maintain the same pace. Plus the time to get back down. And back down the unprotected Autobahn when we are exhausted. All these thoughts in a matter of a few seconds. There was no safe choice but for all of us to spin. I think Rob was somewhat relieved. He was really not liking the wind and was worried about frostbite on his face. I knew it was the right call, but I was disappointed. I really thought we had it. I waved my hand in a spinning motion above my shoulder to say we're heading down. Jomah led the way back down to Denali Pass, then we angled down across the Autobahn knowing that we needed to be careful here. Jomah spotted a picket or two on the way down and we were always happy for the few minutes when we knew we were attached to the mountain.  As we arrived back at the bottom of the Autobahn, Katie and Mareshah were clipping into the first picket and preparing to start their ascent. We told them about Jomah's lost mitten, the fact that the wind was still blowing up high and that there were precious few pickets to clip into across this dangerous stretch. They decided to abort their summit attempt and head back to 17 Camp with us. We tried to get some sleep with the wind rustling the tents all night, but it was tough. The weather report for Friday still showed precipitation coming in, so we planned to head back down to 14 Camp in the morning to regroup and wait. Jomah could borrow a mitten from Joe no problem if we decided to try again. Day 13 - Friday 6/16 - Descent to 14 Camp 17 Camp was fairly socked in when we woke up and most teams were packing up to head back down to 14 Camp. There was chatter around camp that there had been a fatality during the night. A 28-year old Nepalese man collapsed at the base of the Autobahn on his descent from the summit of Denali, his 7th of the 7 Summits. The mood was somber. Jomah had been hoping to ski down the Rescue Gully back to 14 Camp, but given we were in a cloud and there was no visibility, he said he would just walk down the ridge with us. We worked on packing up our camp and were getting pretty close to being ready when suddenly the clouds started to evaporate around us.  Jomah looked at me and said, "oooh Brad! Now that I can see, I'm tempted to ski. What do you think?" I replied, "dude, you should. You've carried your skis to almost 19,000' on this mountain and haven't really gotten to use them. I know the skiing was a big part of why you wanted to come." I told him that he would still need to get his share of the group gear down with him because the other four of us didn't have excess space in our packs; Jomah nodded his agreement. We packed up the last few things from camp as Jomah was clipping into his skis. He said, "woah, I've never skied with a pack this heavy before (at least 55-60 pounds). This should be interesting." We wished him well and told him we'd see him down at 14 Camp in a couple hours. With that, we watched as Jomah headed over towards the top of the Rescue Gully. I snapped a few pictures and we watched him drop in and make his first turn, then he was out of sight.  As we were preparing to walk from 17 Camp, the NPS Rangers who have their camp perched up on a rocky outcropping right above the Rescue Gully yelled over to us, "your buddy just took a fall." "He's still tumbling." (pause) "it looks like he triggered a small avalanche and now we can't see him anymore." Well that's no good. They asked us if we had radio contact with him and we told them that unfortunately the batteries died in the cold. "Does he have a beacon?" We responded, "no, he's the only skier on our team and knew we wouldn't be carrying them so he didn't bring one either." They were not very happy with us. They had had a rough night dealing with the fatality and preparing the body for evacuation. They left us with the parting words, "Well, you better hope he can get himself out of this, because it's going to be at least 24 hours before we could mount a search. Good luck." There was nothing we could do for Jomah from 17 Camp, so I sent Kevin Baker a quick message letting him know what happened (and to please help coordinate anything that might be needed from 14 Camp) and we headed down the ridge as quickly as we could carefully go. Rob and I were in front with Mareshah and Katie on the other rope behind us. Every chance Rob got, he peered down to his left trying to get a look to see if he can see any sign of Jomah. Soon, he called back to me, "Brad! I think I see him!" I told him to wait for me, so he took the rope in as I descended to his position. He pointed out the tiny black speck he was seeing far below. I yelled down, "Jomah!!!" No response. We kept watching the little black speck and it sure looked like it was moving. We watched a little longer, and once we were pretty sure we had seen him and he was alive and moving, we kept hustling down the ridge, hoping to put ourselves in a position to assist. Our mood definitely improved once we were pretty sure Jomah was ok. We clipped into the short fixed line section at Washburn's thumb, then carefully navigated the exposed side hilling sections to get back to the base of the headwall. We clipped our ascenders into the down line and did our arm rappels down. As we were descending, I was looking back towards the Rescue Gully trying to spot Jomah. I finally saw him!  We kept going to the bottom of the fixed lines, then we headed over to the staging area where most teams take a break before getting on the lines. Jomah was getting closer to us, ever so slowly.  We called out to him and he kept swimming through the waist deep snow to get to our position. We went up to him when we was just a few feet away and offered to take his backpack, asking if he's ok. He replied, "my knee is hurt". Relieved to be out of his heavy pack, he hobbled the last few feet to the break spot where Katie and Mareshah had now joined us. We got his puffy on him and suddenly we all had a jolt of emotions, so relieved that he is ok. We asked what happened and he shared the story with us: It's strange how time stretches in a small moment of helplessness. Out of the corner of your eye, you catch a glimpse of the car that ran the light as you're crossing the intersection. A passerby bumps your elbow while you're holding a tray of dishes. Like a bad movie cliche, an eternity passes as the car at the intersection smashes directly into yours; plates crash and shatter on the ground. This time, coherent thoughts formed like galaxies as eons came and went. My luck it seems had finally run out. All the irresponsible things I'd done had finally caught up to me. I'd messed up this time. Real bad. A strange calm replaces the panic that only exists in the frantic search for hope. Sky, snow, rocks; sky, snow, rocks. Again and again, faster and faster with each cycle. After coming down from our summit bid, I was still hopeful. We hadn't used any weather days, and I had a feeling I could convince the team to give it another shot. Regardless, we hadn't brought more than a few days of food to high camp, necessitating a trip down to basin camp to resupply and hopefully borrow a mitten to replace the one I had so foolishly lost. After packing up camp and somehow managing to fit most of my gear into my pack, I strapped my shovel, probe, ax, and crampons onto the outside. I pushed off towards the Rescue Gully smug as a pug knowing I'd be back in Basin Camp hours before the rest of the team. A couple ski cuts at the top produce some slough; nothing I didn't expect. The first few turns feel awkward and I adjust the heavy pack. I get into a groove through the crux turns and just as I make it past the choke, a ski pops off and slides maybe 30 ft down before coming to a stop in the fresh snow. âAh you idiot,â I curse under my breath. âYou're wearing a pretty heavy pack, what did you think would happen?â I don't normally lock my bindings for fear of injury, and I should have upped the release settings to account for the pack, but too late now. I go ahead and lock the other toe. The slope here is maybe in the 40 degree range; I don't really know and estimating slope angle on the fly is a muddy science at best. Often people will recall a slope to be much steeper than it really is. I start side slipping down to the prodigal ski, noticing how I'm uncovering a firm layer of snow underneath and before I know it, I'm a rudimentary example of relativity in a physics textbook. The ski I locked down starts the journey with me, getting lost somewhere along the way, but not before I feel the pop in my knee. âYeah you messed up real good this time. If you don't bash your head in somewhere, you'll end up at the bottom of a crevasse for sure.â I'm not sure how many conversations I had with myself in the centuries I spent tomahawking down. âDude, everyone on the mountain is watching you right now. If you're lucky, someone's filming this.â But as fate would have it, I was not to be lost forever in the maw of an enormous ice fissure, my head was intact, and as far as I know, there's no footage of the incident. I came to a stop above a huge rollover where the angle eased right before it seemed to steepen again. Or so I think. Everything that wasn't strapped on was gone. Not only had I lost my skis, but my shovel, probe, goggles, and most importantly, my glasses were gone. I was damn near blind. The world was a blur of blue and white. Luckily I had done a better job strapping down my ax and crampons. A moment of disorientation and I right myself, bringing my feet below me. It felt like someone had taken a hammer to my left knee. I'd later confirm that I had torn my ACL and medial meniscus. I never did buy a lottery ticket when I got home, but I did feel pretty lucky that was the worst of it. I don the crampons and briefly consider dropping the pack, but think twice of it. I was carrying one of the cook pots and the rest of the team would probably be upset without it. I knew the trail was down and to the right and I could see ants moving up and down what I guessed were the fixed lines. It didn't take long for me to start making my way down. I actually considered going back up the gully to high camp. I hadn't skied very far, and it was the closest distance to help I could get. My knee disagreed. It was stiff, and it would vehemently protest against any attempt to bend or weight it. The slog down was⦠hard, to say the least. The snow was deep in places, and where it wasn't, I'd have to kick in to get purchase, which didn't make my knee any happier. I stepped through a couple snow bridges and on one occasion had to completely weight the bad knee to get out. As I got closer and closer to the fuzzy ants I could see there was a gathering just off the trail. I did my best to ignore them and just focus on moving. I'd have to cross the bergshrund soon. I traversed above it towards the trail but quickly came to a bump that I'd have to climb. Unwilling to commit to it just yet, I backtracked a ways and found a big snow bridg over a smaller section of the bergshrund. I quickly made the decision to go down it. Foolhardy perhaps; had it collapsed and swallowed me up, the choice to avoid it would have been obvious in hindsight. I did my best to spread my weight as I crossed it, furiously swimming across where I felt firm snow drop down and away. As I put more and more distance between me and the schrund, I closed the gap between me and the group of ants. I continued to wallow across the snow, and I felt my composure cracking with each step. By the time they were in earshot, I was suddenly angry. I was so close and so exhausted. It would cost them nothing to come out 50 feet and meet me, and they were making me come to them like it was some sort of finish line to a race that I had to cross myself. Ultimately I made it. Brad and Rob were the first of the suddenly human-sized ants on the trail, entirely unaware of my knee situation. I collapse and burst into tears.  I messaged down to Kevin at 14 Camp that we had Jomah and got a quick reply asking if we needed help getting him down. Kevin's team was all geared up and ready to come up and help us. We asked Jomah his thoughts and he was adamant that he could get down to 14 Camp and wanted us to handle it within our team. I thanked Kevin for his offer and we prepared for the walk down to 14 Camp, which was suddenly looking a long ways away.  Rob and I tied Jomah's backpack into the middle of our rope and figured we would just drag it down to 14 Camp like a sled. We gave Jomah a trekking pole and got him tied into the middle of Mareshah's rope. With the help of the trekking pole, Jomah was able to limp down the hill, doing his best to keep weight off of his injured knee. Joe met us at the bottom of the hill and threw Jomah's pack on, which was extremely helpful as we no longer had gravity on our side and it was becoming difficult to drag it across flatter ground towards camp. When we got to camp, Derek, Kevin and Hoot lept into action and re-excavated our old tent platforms for us (which had been covered in new powder snow in the days since we had been at 17 Camp). Derek, in particular, was like the bionic man. I've never seen someone shovel that hard and fast, much less at 14,000'! They helped get the Hillebergs set up for us again while we were getting Jomah settled and getting him a hot drink. Thanks so much guys! This meant a lot to us - so proud to be a part of the Colorado climbing community where we take great care of each other. One of the volunteer rangers from the NPS came over to camp to check on Jomah. They had been watching our progress all afternoon. She was from Finland I think and used to be a ski patroller in Vail before she and her husband decided to come work summers on Denali. She asked Jomah if she could assess his knee. He told her he had a prior meniscus injury and thinks he tore that. Jomah's knee was badly swollen and it was a bit difficult for him to get his pants and long johns off so she could take a look.  We brought Jomah fresh bags of snow so he could keep his knee iced, made dinner and agreed to check back in with the rangers in the morning to develop our plan for getting the rest of the way down the mountain. Day 14 - Saturday 6/17 - Planning, planning and more planning (take two) Over breakfast, we had a team meeting to talk about our options. Self-sufficiency in the mountains is really important, so we were trying to work up a plan where we could assist Jomah in getting down without using scarce SAR resources. It was clear that Jomah wasn't carrying a 50 pound pack down the hill while pulling a sled, so that created logistical challenges. The rest of our packs and sleds were full enough with our own stuff, so there was not room to re-distribute Jomah's. We were also concerned about Jomah's ability to hobble the long distance, especially in the difficult terrain of Windy Corner and Squirrel Hill. If we had two more sleds, maybe we could put all of his stuff in one sled and Jomah in another? That was the best we came up with, so I headed over to the NPS tent to talk to them. I let them know that we think we can get him down if they happen to have two more sleds that we can use. We walked through the logistics of this idea, then they asked me if they can have an hour to talk it over amongst themselves. I left and agreed to come back in an hour. When I came back, they first complimented us on being great teammates and sticking together. Jomah's self-rescue from his fall is astounding and they have seen far too many occasions where the rest of the team leaves the injured person for SAR to deal with and goes happily about their business. They thanked us for not being like that. "We have two sleds and we are willing to give them to you if you'd like. We don't think that is the best plan, however." I ask for their advice. They tell me that they think we are underestimating the effort it will take for the other five of us to get Jomah and all of his gear down, especially in the tougher terrain above 11 Camp. "We think we would end up having to come down and get all of you if you try to self-evacuate." They tell me that they have considered other options including having one of their expert skiers ski Jomah down to 11 Camp in a litter, then let us take it from there. "We have enough SAR activity going on at 14 Camp and 17 Camp, however, and we don't really want to send one of our acclimatized rangers down to 11 Camp with you, leaving us short handed here." She goes on to tell me that they have been in touch with the NPS in Talkeetna, and that they are able to offer Jomah a helicopter evacuation off the mountain. That is their advice. I take it back to our team, and as much as Jomah doesn't want to be helicoptered off of Denali, he wants to make things as easy on the rest of us as he can. He knows getting him and his gear down will be a huge effort for the other five of us and he doesn't want to be a burden. We all agree that we should follow the NPS' advice and let them evacuate Jomah (and hopefully at least some of his gear). The NPS can't tell us for sure when the weather will be acceptable for the helicopter to fly, so we are in wait and see mode. Nothing happens the rest of that day, so we all just hang out at camp. Jomah gets a little stir crazy just lying in his tent and hobbles over to the cook tent with a trekking pole to hang out with us. Day 15 - Sunday 6/18 - Hurry Up and Wait, then Hurry Up and Leave At 8:25 AM (early in Denali-world!),we woke up to the sound of a helicopter. We all jumped out of our sleeping bags thinking this was Jomah's evacuation. It turned out to be a Japanese film crew much to our disappointment. Soon after, the NPS ranger came to our camp and told us that Jomah's helicopter was coming and to get his things ready. Jomah was all packed up, so we headed over to the NPS camp and they got him a helmet and had him staged next to the landing pad. Sure enough, the helicopter came and hovered for a few minutes above 14 Camp. When the NPS is able to fly and goes to the expense, they of course try to get as much done as possible. The helicopter pilot began gaining altitude and went and sat above 17 Camp for a minute. He was trying to decide if he could land up there and retrieve the body of the fallen climber. Deciding that he could, he zipped back down to 14 Camp and landed on the pad, kicking up freezing cold spindrift as he did. They attached a long line onto the bottom of the chopper and he took right back off up to 17 Camp again. A few minutes later, we watched the sobering sight of him flying back down to 14 Camp with the body of the fallen climber in a litter below the helicopter. We suddenly wondered if Jomah was going to be sharing the chopper back to Talkeetna with the corpse of a fellow 28-year old. The irony of the possibility was striking considering how much worse things could have been for Jomah. Thankfully, that was not the plan. They unloaded the body at 14 Camp and gave Jomah the signal that he was up. They were able to get his backpack in with him, filled to the brim with all of his gear. And just like that, Jomah was gone.  Our flights back home were scheduled out of Anchorage for Friday 6/23 (as early as 12:35 AM). Our original itinerary had us summiting no later than Tuesday 6/20 with 6/21 being our descent day with the feast in Talkeetna that evening. 6/22 was then our shuttle back to Anchorage day. So...theoretically, we could have gone back up to 17 Camp on Monday and tried one more time for the summit on Tuesday and still made our flights. In hindsight, I should have entertained more discussion about what our remaining teammates wanted to do. I made the assumption that everyone was just done and ready to get off the mountain. And certainly, at least a couple would have laughed at me if I had suggested we go up again. We had little discussion about staying though. We made polenta to eat, then began to pack up camp in preparation to descend. Our goal was to descend from 14 Camp back to our beloved 10,000' camp that afternoon, stop and have dinner, then descend the lower glacier through the night in the cooler temperatures on re-frozen snow. We left 14 Camp at 4:00 PM and headed down. We stopped at 11 Camp (which looked completely different!) and dug up our cache (a bit harder since there was a new team camped nearly on top of it). When we got to our old camp spot at 10,000', the remnants of our Mega Mid pit were still there, so we excavated the fresh snow out of it and set up the Mega Mid cook tent again so we could dine in comfort. After dinner and hot drinks, we packed back up and continued down the lower glacier. The colors in the twilight sky were spectacular that night on the descent, perfectly capturing our collective mood on the descent.  Heartbreak Hill is named that for a reason of course, and it isn't because it's a pain in the butt to descend with your sled right when you arrive on the mountain (although that is a rough way to break in your sled pulling days). The pain comes when you are ready to be off the mountain, have been traveling through the night, turn the corner and realize that the airstrip is up the hill. Going up Heartbreak Hill wasn't quite as painful for me this time as it was in 2014 when I was hallucinating on my way up it, but it still was unpleasant. We arrived at Base Camp about 5:30 AM, and quickly set up our tents to grab an hour of sleep. Day 16 - Monday 6/19 - Off the Glacier and Back to Civilization At 7:00 AM, the Base Camp manager, Lisa, hollered up to us, asking if we were hoping to fly out that morning. "Yes please". She broke the news to us that a couple days prior, she had to move the airstrip 20 minutes further up hill as crevasses had started opening up on the original one given it was late in the Denali season. She told us to be up there by 8:30 or 9:00 at the absolute latest. I went off to try to find our Base Camp cache. I found our wands and started digging. I kept digging and digging and digging. Nothing. Surely this is the right spot. I checked my phone, looking at the picture I had taken of the mountain with our cache in the foreground. It looked right to me. Soon my knuckles were bleeding from scraping against the snow walls in the manhole I was digging that was now in excess of my 6'4" height. Where the hell is our cache??? I checked my watch and realized I was burning valuable time. I headed back over to the tents to check on our group. They were getting things all packed up, so Joe offered to come take a turn digging. He dug for a while too. Still nothing. Bummer. We have to go. Like now. I felt terrible leaving our cache in the glacier wherever it might be. I knew it would eventually show up on the surface as the snow melted into July. Our center wand must have gotten moved somehow in our time on the mountain. We had to give up and head to the airstrip (back in Talkeetna, I told them we couldn't find it, gave them my contact info, and sure enough, it eventually turned up at the end of the season - they donated everything in it that was still usable to a local charity). We were separated into two groups for the quick flight back to Talkeetna. When we arrived at the airstrip, Jomah was waiting for us, still hobbling, but getting around better and better each day. We got lodging squared away for the night at a hostel on the main street, then went off in search of a massive breakfast at the Roadhouse (the half standard plus a giant cinnamon roll was my choice that morning - excellent!). Afterwards, we had a big gear sorting, drying and re-packing party with beers at the hostel. I found a giant piece of coconut cream pie across the street at the bakery for my afternoon snack, then we ate pizza for dinner where I overdid it with the crushed red pepper on my badly chapped lips (ouch!).  Day 17 - Tuesday 6/20 - Back to Anchorage, Home for Most and Reflections After another Roadhouse breakfast, we arranged a shuttle back to Anchorage. We ended up sharing it with three other folks from Colorado who had also been on the mountain. I had decided to stay in Anchorage for the night and fly home Wednesday whereas the others were able to get on flights Tuesday night. We said goodbye at the airport with lots of hugs, then I was by myself. I walked many miles to dinner that night, just enjoying the warmer temps and enjoying some time to think. I certainly was disappointed to leave Denali again without the summit under my belt. But I was also really proud of the way we handled ourselves up there. We were a rock solid team, we supported each other through the bumps along the way in the trip, did right by our injured teammate and left the mountain all still friends. Sure I would have loved to summit a few days later with Mr. Bluebird (Kevin Baker) and team, but those weren't the cards we were dealt. I went into this trip willing to trust my life to each of my teammates and I would trust my life to each and every one of them on a future adventure. Summits are nice, but it's important to enjoy the experiences along the way. Thanks for reading. Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
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