west rib of denali

[ivan]

eager to avoid the insane masses of the buttress and do something that gets challenging long before the summit, i'm contemplating the west rib...read a couple of descriptions and looking for some beta from living humans who've done it...anybody out there?

[Bug]

Nope. Failed miserably. And conditions could not have been better. Just shoot me.

Avoid my mistakes. Ski. Some low lifes have been known to remove their bindings at the base of the couliour and jetison their skiis into a crevass. This is just information. Go light. 200lbs for three of us was too much. Be in great shape. One member was too weak and we had to back out of the NE Fork. You have to move fast through the valley of death to avoid those pesky avalanches. Be ready to free-solo 60 degree snow and ice with a heavy pack. This eliminates having too many ropes.

Or go heavy. fix the couliour. Hump the death zone in, out, in to ferry loads.

http://www.aeic.alaska.edu/Input/affiliated/mcnamara/westrib.html

[russki82]

not that I've ever been on Denali (though hopefully I will next summer), but from what I know, the upper West Rib (starting from the medical camp at 14K) is a good compromise that is on one hand a technical climb where the last 6,000 vertical feet you're on your own, but on the other hand something that is doable by us normal people too without prolonged and severe objective danger. The key here is that this way you avoid the Valley of Death entirely. The drawback of course is that you must deal with the mob on the lower West Butt...but once above the medical camp it is real mountaineering.

 

btw ivan, are you a russki too or are you just plagiarizing our name?

 

[Ade]

I climbed the West Rib to 18k this last May in pretty shitty weather. We bailed down the Orient Express back to the 14k camp rather than heading up the final 1000' couloir to the football field in poor visibility and high winds.

 

We didn't approach via the NE fork (we actually descended the W Rib with the intention of climbing something else but conditions forced us to re-ascent the W Rib instead). In the conditions we did it the W Rib was pretty straightforward, it wasn't too icy and we moved together up the whole route. The interesting climbing is the bottom couloir and the rocky section between 15-18k. The lower ice domes could be pretty entertaining if icy.

 

The main consideration is that it's much more exposed than the West Butress. The camps above 15k aren't that great and are really exposed to the wind. If the weather craps out the its going to get unpleasant. It does have the bailout option of the West Rib Cutoff which makes it a lot less serious than all of its neighbours.

 

Some people head straight up the W Rib from KIA. This seems like a lot of work as you'll not be acclimatised. We met a couple of parties doing this, they had a lot of gear and we moving pretty slowly. I really wouldn't recommend fixing the couloir. The heavy loads involved are no fun especially if you have to do multiple carries up the NE Fork and the route doesn't really require this sort of tactic.

 

Acclimatise on the West Butt or something else - if I went back I'd look harder for another way to acclimatise spending less time on the Butt. Then go do the route. I think we were on it five or so days, one day sitting out bad(er) weather.

 

The Upper West Rib is a good choice if you want to avoid the NE fork and do some interesting climbing but it really only gets you away from the West Butress zoo for 1-2 days.

 

Bug is right be in great shape (that's what Tiger Mtn is for). If I did it again I would also try and acclimatise by climbing the Butt to well above the 17k camp, possibly even summiting as part of the process.

 

[ 11-03-2002, 10:04 PM: Message edited by: Ade ]

[ivan]

thanks for the input...

 

i'm not russian but ya gavaru pa russki

 

descending the w. rib to reclimb it...i guess i didn't think of that for good reason...what were you going to climb ade? i do plan on acclimatizing first, probably by making a stash at 14

 

what rock pro (if any) did you bring for the upper rib?

[Ade]

We had a shit load of gear with us and only placed a few screws because "falling down the lower couloir would be a real pain in the arse, we'd have to reclimb it." to quote my partner on the day. Remember when we did it there was a lot of snow. In leaner icier times you might want rock gear and more ice pro.

 

[ 11-04-2002, 06:44 PM: Message edited by: Ade ]