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Denali 2000

Larry Ingalls

What better way to celebrate the year 2000 than by climbing the highest mountain in North America?

About a year ago six of my friends got together and decided to climb Denali. My friends are part of that group of crazies called mountain climbers. We started our planning and practice climbs but some are crazier than others and soon our group dwindled to two. So began the adventure with Kevork and me, the craziest.

After reading three books, a trip report, a couple of magazine articles; buying and borrowing a lot gear and making transportation reservations; we were posed to begin our adventure. We took all our gear up to Stevens Pass and to see how everything would work roped up while pulling 75-pound sleds and carrying a 55-pound pack. We also practiced crevasse rescues in case one of us fell into one on the Kilhiltna Glacier. As you might expect we found that we needed other equipment and a change in some techniques. Putting the cart before the horse was useful, especially when going down hill with a 75-pound sled bumping our heels. Of course, one always modifies technique in actual experience; Kevork became a very skilled sled rider making some of the downhill sections on the way out quite quick. Ride’m Kevork!

Our travel to the mountain was amazingly according to schedule. We flew out of Seattle at 11 PM on Friday, 5/26, and got into Anchorage at 2 AM Saturday morning. Being basically cheap, except when it comes to buying climbing gear, we pulled up the floor in the terminal and slept until 6 AM when people started to arrive for their flights. The shuttle van picked us up at about 8 AM and we were in Talkeetna, Alaska by about 11 AM. After checking in with the Bush Pilot operation, we signed in with the National Park Service and received a briefing on conditions on Denali and some safety considerations. We then loaded all that gear into a Cessna 185 and took off about 3 PM. We landed at the Kilhiltna Glacier Base Camp, 7,200', at about 4 PM. Here we buried a stash of food that we could use upon return in case we ate everything else before we got back. Fat chance! As it turned out, we carried out a whole week’s worth; much to our chagrin. Food is heavy. We had about 2.5 pounds of food per day for a three-week trip. That is 52.5 pounds of food a piece to carry up the mountain. At the start we conserved our food. At the end we were eating as much as we could to keep from having to carry it out. Amazingly, we still lost weight; Kevork lost 15 pounds and I lost 13.

Since there was plenty of daylight left, about 2 months, when we arrived at the base camp we started hiking to our first camp right away. Our mode of travel was to carry half of our gear to the site of the next camp and then return the same day to the original camp to sleep. The next day we would take the tent and the rest of the gear to the next camp. We did this all the way up the mountain. This, of course, means we climbed the mountain twice. Practice makes perfect!

We used this process with camps at 7,400', 9,400', 11,000', 14,000', and 17,000'. We spent three days at 14,000' getting used to the thinner air before making our first attempt to summit. The weather thus far had been very good, with only one day of blowing wind and visibility of less than a mile. The day temperatures were typically between 10 and 20˜ F with the “nighttime” temperatures between -10 and -30˜. Amazingly, when the sun came out, it was very comfortable in shirtsleeves because I wore black. However, when we went into shadow, it got very cold, almost instantly. That is when the pile pants, the down coat, the pile hat and the warm mittens would be layered on. When the wind was blowing, it did not matter if the sun was shining or not; it was cold. We had a saying—The wind rules.

After nine days we were in position to try for the summit.

We made our second trip up the West Buttress Headwall, about a 45–50 degree slope. Our first trip up was to carry five days of food and the spare stove and gas up to the high camp the day before. It was a gorgeous day. We met several friends we had made coming up the mountain earlier that were coming down from the summit. They were one day ahead of us in their schedule. There was the group of three, two guys and gal, from Davis California, Tony and Cohen from Great Britain, and Peta and Dave. Peta was from Scotland and Dave was from the Bahamas. Both were experienced Mt. Everest climbers 'out to have a little fun’.

We got into high camp and built a snow wall around the tent for protection from the wind. This is something we did at every camp in case it really started to blow hard. During the night the tent started to shake. The wind had come up and a storm was on the way in. We got up in the morning and decided it not wise to stay up there. As painful as it was, we packed up and headed back down to 14,000'. The West Buttress was being hammered by the wind and once I was blown off my feet. At times we almost crawled along the ridge to keep from getting blown off. Fortunately, the 14,000' camp is much more sheltered.

The next three days were spent down there watching the lenticular cloud that gripped the summit of Denali. I took a couple of pictures of the swirling cloud that told us just how windy it was up there. The winds frequently reach 100 MPH. Then on the 13th day it started to abate. On day 14 we headed back up to high camp with two other groups that we made friends with. When we got up there again we were really tried, but had to build our wind walls again. The storm had blown away the ones we built on the first attempt four days earlier.

It would have been nice to take a rest day, but the weather forecast indicated that another storm was headed in and would likely cause bad weather for a week or more. So we decided that we needed to go for it the next day. It was not too bad climbing the 1,000' to Denali Pass, but above that it started to blow. We had about everything on and were none too warm. I tried to cover everything up, but had to keep my nose and mouth uncovered just to be able to suck in enough air. At that altitude even taking a drink was a challenge. I would take a swig and then pant for 10 seconds to get my breath back. We would travel about 20 yards and then rest for about 30 seconds breathing hard and then go again. In less then an hour my beard was one big icicle. By the time we covered the first 2,000' we were tried. Even though it was blowing and cold we had to stop to eat and drink. That proved to make all the difference. With new energy we headed up the remaining 1,300'. Amazingly, when we gained the summit ridge the wind almost completely died and it cleared. It was a real fun ridge run to the summit. We spent about 20 minutes up on the 20,320' summit and then noticed that it was starting to cloud up again. Time to head down!

By the time we got off the summit ridge, which was quick, we were in almost a whiteout where we could only see about 100 yards. The wind picked up again. From Denali Pass down to camp we used a running belay (used this on the summit ridge also) to keep from slipping down the 45-degree slope. Two other climbers from Armenia came past us. They were not roped up and were not even using ice axes. They got about 50 yards in front of us and one slipped and fell down the face about 500'. We returned to camp to get help for him. We could not have helped any ourselves, so that was the best option. The first rule of rescue in the mountains is to not put more people at risk trying to help someone else. Having one person hurt is enough; getting more people hurt is not good. In that location, we would have very definitely risked injury to others. A team from high camp did go out and bring the injured climber back to camp. Because the weather had turned bad, they were not able to get him off the mountain until three days later when they were finally able to get a helicopter in to lift him out.

Eleven hours after we started we were back at high camp. We crawled into the tents and went to sleep. Food could wait. The next morning the wind was howling and it was cold! It took 30 minutes to melt a pot of snow for water. We put a pot on and went back to sleep for a half-hour. Did that for the next 1-1/2 hours. Even though the weather was really bad, we decided to get out of there. It was so cold and the wind chill factor was so low that I got a little frostbite on the tips of my fingers. I made it all through the trip until then with no problem. Oh well.

The trip out was fast. From high camp we went down to 11,000' in one day. The next day we went the 10 miles to base camp and were back in the Cessna 185 on our way to Talkeetna by 5 PM It felt so good climbing out of that aircraft into warm air.

This certainly was a lifetime experience. We met many very interesting and friendly people. We did get the opportunity to help one climber who was totally exhausted and was really struggling to get down the West Buttress headwall. Kevork set up a belay for him and I carried his pack. He was barely able to walk by the time we got up to him. You help when you can do it safely. In recognition of our efforts, the National Park Service gave us Denali 2,000 pins.

It took us 16 days to complete the trip. We missed by one day doing it in 12 days. However, I told my boss we would likely summit on June 10 before I left. And no good scheduler misses a date. We summated June 10, 2000.