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Denali - Climbing Report


mr.radon

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Well got back from Denali.

Group name: "Boeing Sucks!"

Landed on the glacier 5-26-2002, returned 6-12-2002. TAT had a cracked up Cessna 185 on the glacier when we landed, no one was hurt in the wreck; he was delivering pizza to base camp.....

We wanted to climb the full West Rib. Weather went to shit the 4th day. Spent 13 days at 14K camp. Checked out the West Rib Direct, skinned/climbed up to inspect the route conditions. Bad conditions on the Rib during the first week of June, tons of new snow. Skied back to 14K from the Rib, what fun! Yeah!!!

Fresh snow made for awesome skiing. Skinned to fixed lines to ski down several times. Waist deep champagne powder all the way to camp. Don't leave skis at 11K camp. Motorcycle and Squirrel Hill are fun to ski down even with packs and sleds on. Windy Corner is not a problem with skies like we were told by some Germans.

Made the summit from 14K camp 6-10-02. After 17,300' was total vertigo, followed wands to summit (summit was poorly wanded almost walked off). High winds, snow and poor visibility. Tent to tent in just under 12 hours. No rope, no pro, light and fast. I climbed with my Denali A/T boots, didn't want the extra weight of mountaineering boots. Worked really well (they were a little heavy). We figured the weather wasn't going to improve.

Hooked up with two climbers from Ouray Colorado. They wanted to do the Cassin, but weather forced them to change plans too so they went with us.

If the Brew's Brothers group reads this, let me know how things went.

Russians put up fixed lines to the top of Rescue Gully. Used fixed lines to hand rappel back to camp.

Snow is dry, needed more fuel then expected but got fuel at 14K from people leaving early, food was available too but didn't need any. Used 2.2 gallons in 18 days with two people. Made a lot of regular meals, (no dehydrated foods) so that might have made us use more fuel then we thought.

Met Pencil Pusher at Doug Geeting Aviation, part of a Boeing Alpine Club climb.

Doug Geeting Aviation is the service to use. On the flight out PJ did two barrel rolls, then dropped the plane into the river basin (10' off the water), followed the river at low altitude till he got back to town. Big grins on our faces....the whole time PJ piped into the head sets rock tunes off his CD player. Way cool.

West Rib for Burger and beer after summit... [big Drink][chubit]

 

[ 06-19-2002, 04:23 PM: Message edited by: mr.radon ]

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On that hill it would be "Plane to Plane".

I heard some ranger did a speed climb some time ago. Set some sick record. Not that we couldn't break any record set by some well acclimated ranger, but we wanted to enjoy the scenery and suffer by hauling all that gear up to 14K camp. Aren't all climbers a little sadistic anyway?

Seriously; this was our, went with jdog, first trip to Alaska. Everything went real well for us. Only a couple of items we brought that were never needed. Food worked out great. We ate real well but still lost 30 pounds between the two of us. Skis worked excellent, Denali boots rule. If anyone wants info on gear or supplies let me know.

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