Located just outside of Talkeetna, Alaska is Denali- the highest mountain peak in North America and one of the famous Seven Summits. It is notoriously known as one of the coldest mountains on the planet and for having no official trail. The peak is 20,310ft high and attracts over1,000 climbers every year seeking to attempt the summit.
While each expedition of Denali will vary slightly based on if you choose to solo or take a guided expedition, the company you choose and the timing of your expedition, below are the details from my West Buttress Route trip through Alaska Mountaineering School (AMS) from 10-27 June, but most companies offer fairly similar itineraries for comparable prices on the route. First though, some of the FAQ's about the climb!
Time of Year- the climbing season for Denali has shortened in recent years with the window now ranging from mid-April to early-July
Duration- most itineraries are projected to be twenty-one days long, taking into account the unpredictability of the weather on the mountain and building in a few days for weather contingencies
Price- most expeditions cost around $12k. Other significant costs include airfare, insurance (around $1k), climbing gear including rentals, and tipping for the guides (usually recommended to be 8-12% of the trip cost). All together this is an expensive expedition so it is well worth investing the time to do your research and training to maximize the likelihood of success
Technical Skills Required- most companies require fairly extensive experience with other climbs on similar mountains and evaluate applicants based on their mountaineering skills (including crampons, self-arrest, and glacier rescue), previous hiking/mountaineering and the summits achieved (including the height of the mountains and duration of the climbs), and favor substantial cold weather experience
Training- climbers are expected to be in good physical shape and capable of carrying heavy loads for extended periods of time. Most days include sled travel where gear is split between backpacks and sleds that are pulled across the glacier. You are responsible for carrying all of your personal gear and sharing the group gear including food for the expedition. There are no porters available on this mountain so it is important that you are self-sufficient and accustomed to carrying the heavy loads!
Name change- the mountain was officially named "Mount McKinley" in 1986 after President William McKinley. In 2015, the name was officially changed back to Denali, which means "The Great One" in the native Koyukon language
Climbing companies- there are seven authorized guide concessions for climbers attempting Denali. They are similar in the routes, timelines and prices, but can vary in the guide to climber ratio and required experience to participate
Below are the details of what to expect on an average expedition, but each trip will vary depending on the challenges faced by your team, especially the weather conditions and anyone who requires an early departure, which may cause substantial delays at any point of the expedition.
Day 0- Welcome to Talkeetna
Arrival by plane into Anchorage and taking a bus, shuttle or other transportation to Talkeetna- this trip is approximately 2 hours by car. The climbing companies usually incorporate the pick-up of climbers on the front-end of the trip, but not the return afterward because many climbers spend varying time in Talkeetna following the trip. I got picked up in the late afternoon after my flights in from DC with four of the other climbers and we started the road trip up. Most of us had accommodations booked through the company for the initial nights staying at the Swiss Alaska Inn, which is a basic but comfortable local hotel that serves a fantastic hearty breakfast.
Day 1- Unpack & Repack
Everyone was picked up from their respective hotels with all of their climbing gear and we headed to the AMS headquarters. We completed initial introductions and received a safety brief from the guides before jumping into gear checks. Each climber laid out all of their gear from the required list and collectively we did a line by line review of each item. The guides provided feedback on gear that we had questions about and developed checklists for the outstanding items that each climber had to rent or purchase. Rental equipment was pulled from the adjacent building on site and fitted before we moved to the small gear store to purchase the remaining items. During my climb there were parallel teams consisting of four climbers and two guides each (1:2 ratio is great for climbing to provide flexibility if/when issues occur). The teams rotated between the gear checks and packing the lunches, which was much more fun as we packed our lunches for the next three weeks. In the pantry room, massive bins filled with almost every imaginable sweet and savory snack food lined the shelves. It was like stepping into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory with the neatly organized rows of candy and bars of chocolate. They instructed us to pack enough lunches for all three weeks and to keep the weight under 15 lbs (divided into three stuff sacks with 5 lbs per week). By late afternoon we wrapped everything up, staged our gear and headed out into the town for what we hoped would be our final in-town dinner.
Day 2- Flight to the Glacier
After arriving back at the headquarters, the morning kicked off with a safety brief from an NPS Ranger to remind everyone of the do’s and don’ts for the mountain with a not so subtle reminder of how serious the climb was and the importance of communicating with the guides. He reminded us that it was possible to both summit and come home without getting frostbite before wishing us good luck. We headed back to our tarps where our gear was staged and everyone completed final prep and packing. The last segment at the headquarters was doing a review of ropes and how to get out of a crevasse if we were to fall in with our packs. As the time drew closer for our tentative flight out, the team called the airport to confirm that the weather window was open and if we would be able to depart. Once we received a 'most likely yes' response, we packed the van and drove a few minutes down the road to the local airport where we loaded up the plane. We were incredibly fortunate that the weather cooperated and our plane made it out to the glacier. It was starting to feel real by the time we touched down on the glacier runway and drug everything out to set up our site at base camp. One of the most surprising things for the first few nights was how warm it was in the tents despite being on the ice. The -40 degree sleeping bags wouldn’t be appreciated for a few more days, but it was mostly just exciting to finally be starting after so many months of planning for the trip!
Day 3- Hike to Camp 1
The first real day of climbing started with packing everything back up and starting the long walk out to Camp 1 (about 7,800 ft elevation). It was both my first day of using snowshoes and dragging a sled, but we maintained a slow and steady pace for 5.5 miles across the Lower Kahiltna Glacier. Since we were climbing at the end of the season, it was much easier setting up camp in each location as there were already tent platforms and bathroom locations that previous climbers had dug in. The higher camps tended to have more ice walls still constructed which were great for providing wind breaks and a little more privacy for using the restroom. Each camp had designated urine pits and we carried our own CMCs (small buckets with lids that we placed bags inside of) for all other waste. For waste removal, the guides gave us instructions at each camp, but we typically buried everything when we left the camp and then dug it up as we were descending the mountain to remove it. The system was very organized and seems to have prevented some of the challenges experienced at Aconcagua with contamination of different sites. This is never a favorite part of the mountain climbing experience, but makes you incredibly grateful for toilets after returning.
Day 4- Cache Day at 9,800
We had an early morning wake-up to pack everything up and planned to conduct a single move to an intermediate location between Camp 1 and Camp 2 which was also called 11k Camp. As we were getting secured into the rope and strapped into our snowshoes preparing to depart, we saw the other team slightly ahead of us turning around and returning to camp- never a great sign. Two of the members had decided not to continue on with the expedition, primarily due to the weight of what we were carrying. The guides huddled for a long time to discuss options for both of the teams.
Eventually it was decided that my team would do a cache instead of a move, so we reorganized our equipment and then headed out. With the late start, we only made it to 9,800ft before caching and starting the return to Camp 1. By the time we made it to the cache, the thick clouds had surrounded us and it was nearly impossible to tell which direction we were headed or where the glacier stopped and the sky began. It was incredibly easy to get disoriented, but our guides used GPS and wands to help track and mark the path across the snow. When we returned to camp, the snow was getting sloshy and foreshadowing a bit of the melt to come over the next few weeks for when we would return back from the top.
Day 5- Move to 11k Camp
The 2:30am wakeup was the earliest morning of the trip, but it was important for us to get out and traverse as far as possible while the glacier was as frozen and compact. We all packed up the camp and headed out to move up to 11k Camp in snowshoes and with half loads. The day started with the second climb up Ski Hill and ended with another slope before entering Camp 2. After doing a refresh on an old camp site and re-leveling the tent platforms in the snow, we set up and had a hearty dinner. The meals were calorie heavy to sustain the long hours of exertion, but were surprisingly very delicious. Ben Farrar, one of our guides, always made our camp dinners the mountain equivalent of a Michelin Star dinning experience. At this point we were above the weather in the valley below and started getting beautiful views of where we had crossed as well as the first glimpses of the much steeper terrain ahead.
Day 6- Back Carry
Waking up in the morning I realized the true importance of applying sunscreen as much as possible and discovered that I had not put on nearly enough the previous days. My lips resembled a failed lip injector which were so swollen that it would have been comical if I wasn’t so scared that they wouldn’t go down. Thankfully it was a slow morning and the swelling had already started to go down by the time we left to go back to the cache at 9,800. After digging it up, we loaded up our packs and sleds to return to Camp 11 where we enjoyed a massive brunch. We spent the afternoon on a few more camp improvements, mainly rebuilding a diminishing wall around the bathrooms to actually block the view from camp. It was a light day though and we had an early bed time to rejuvenate for the following morning's hike.
Day 7- Cache Day at 13,200
For the move up Motorcycle Hill, we swapped out the snowshoes for crampons to head up the steeper slope. The bluebird skies and clear weather were perfect conditions and there was minimal wind blowing, even once we crossed Polo Field and rounded windy corner. Around 13,200 the guides dug in the new cache hole and we emptied out our packs. The descent back down was pretty fast so we made it back to camp by mid-afternoon. One of the members of the team pulled the guides aside though and thanks to the close proximity of the camp quarters, we unintentionally eavesdropped and learned that his blisters had become very severe, making it was the end of the road for him. This initiated the protocol to evacuate him from the mountain, which is understandably quite difficult to do since he was unable to walk off the mountain.
Day 8- “Rest”/Evac Day
What had been planned to be our move day to 14k Camp became a rest day while we waited for the helicopter to be coordinated for evacuation. Thankfully there are days built in to the schedule to accommodate weather so we weren’t behind schedule, but it is a still a bit stressful to spend a day with beautiful weather conditions just sitting at camp. It is a part of staying flexible on the mountain though and safety of all team members is obviously the top priority.
Most of the day was spent on “aggressive standby” to support anything for the evacuation, but in reality it was spent walking up and down the safe parts of camp that had been thoroughly wanded to check for crevasses and taking naps. My climbing team was down to me and one other at this point and we decided to dig out a little yoga platform so that we could get some stretching and active recovery in. By the end of the day, there was still no helicopter en route, but there was a possibility of one coming the next morning so the guides walked down to the edge of the glacier to stomp out a small landing pad.
Day 9- Move to 14k Camp
With no news on a helicopter, my team joined with the second team to move up to 14k Camp to stay on schedule while one of our guides stayed behind with the team member until he could get picked up. We went back up the same route and pushed up into 14k Camp by early afternoon. The AMS all women’s team had just finished their successful summit so we were able to tent swap with them and move directly into their camp site which saved the effort of setting everything up. We redirected the energy saved into digging out a kitchen/dining tent for both teams that included ample space for everyone to sit. The views at 14k were even more spectacular and the preview of the next hill up to 16k ridge was far steeper looming in the distance! The temperature difference was starting to be noticeably colder the higher we got and as we listened in on the 8pm weather report over the radios, we started hearing about the temps to expect up at the summit. This was the final ‘up’ day with the sleds though as we transitioned to back carry only.
Day 10- Back Carry
It was another slow roll morning as we waited to kick off the day until the sun hit the camp and started to warm everything up around 9am. Although it was never truly dark this time of year, the temperatures did change pretty substantially when the sun was out making the night time much better for the glacier travel, but also much colder. We returned to the cache at 13,200, dug it up, and made it back to camp within a few hours. After another lovely mountainside brunch of French toast, we spent about an hour and a half on the ropes learning the techniques for the next portion of the climb which involved clipping into the fixed lines to ascend the steep vertical portions while using our heavier gloves and summit mitts.
Day 11- Cache Day at 16k Ridge
We left camp around 9am to head up the fixed lines on the Headwall to the 16k ridge. The first part of the slope was fairly steep, but once we made it up to the bergschrund, we left our ski poles in the snow and transitioned onto the fixed lines. This section was fairly slow as we waited for the teams ahead of us to continue progressing up the lines, but it was my favorite portion of the climb! It was tedious clipping and unclipping all the way up, but there were substantial pockets already carved in the steep ascent from the previous climbers. After we crested the ridge, we continued clipping in to the lines on the fixed pickets along the ridge all the way up to Washburn’s thumb where we dug a cache before heading back to 14k Camp. It was late afternoon by the time we made it back down to camp for a hot dinner and rolling into the rest period.
Day 12- Rest Day
This was a built in rest day to ensure that we met the AMS requirement for a minimum of 4 nights spent at 14k Camp to support acclimatization. Everyone slept in/stayed in their tents resting until far after the sun hit the camp and started to warm everything up. We mostly spent the day calorie loading, hydrating and doing some active recovery with yoga and stretching to prepare for the big upcoming move.
Day 13- Move to 17k Camp
Moving to 17k Camp was one of the hardest days of the climb, mostly due to the weight of the packs since we were no longer using sleds and had to carry everything up in preparation for summit day. Since the weather is highly unpredictable and near the top it is likely to catch some bad weather, we brought enough food to last 5 days at the highest camp. We followed the same steep route up the Headwall and at the top of the ridge, watched as the team behind us crested the top and then their guide suddenly fell off the opposing side of the ridge. His teams weight on the opposing side of the ridge kept him from falling too far down as our guides jumped into action to help pull him back up into the ridge. The NPS rangers had continued up the trail only a few minutes earlier, so they came back down to help coordinate getting him safely rescued off the mountain.
Once the rangers had taken over the situation, our teams continued up to the cache where we collected our buried gear. Miraculously we were able to add everything into or strapped to our already full bags. The portion from Washburn’s thumb to 17k was not as steep as the previous section, but it was plenty spicy as we carefully picked our way along the ridgeline with steep dropoff’s on either side. We set up camp and quickly turned in for the night, bundling up for our coldest night yet. Although we had already been using our sleeping bags essentially as gear lockers overnight for everything from our boot liners to our water bottles to prevent them from freezing, it became especially important to do so at this point.
Day 14- Rest Day
As we settled in for another rest day to acclimatize at 17k Camp, we were able to walk around and explore a little bit. During breakfast we watched as several other teams left camp and crossed the Autobahn on their initial push for summit and got an overview of what we should expect for the climb from the camp up to Summit the following day. Two of the guides had us throw on our crampons and took us over to the edge of camp for some of the most stunning views of the climb. From our vantage point, we could see the surrounding mountain peaks below us in the distance as well as the tiny specks that comprised 14k Camp sprinkled far below. In the evening we prepped all of our gear and had some dehydrated dinners to load up on calories before the big day.
Day 15- Summit Day
All of the waiting and work to get this far up the mountain finally paid off as we eagerly packed up our bags and prepared to head up on our summit push. The guides had coordinated with the other teams that were also going for the summit that day so we left in a staggered timeline to hopefully prevent some of the traffic rush that we had been stuck in going up the fixed lines on 16k ridge. Unfortunately within the first hour of leaving we still got stuck in traffic on the first portion of the Autobahn waiting for the teams in front to make their way up the steepest climb and on to the next ridge. Thankfully we were bundled up in plenty of layers and had hand and toe warmers in, so despite the slow progress we made it up to Zebra Rocks with no issues.
From there it was a slow and steady march up to the football field which provided a large open and fairly flat space to catch our breaths before the last hard push up Pig Hill near the top. When we finally crested Pig Hill, we could see the summit across the last ridge that we slowly picked our way across. The weather conditions were about as ideal as we could have hoped for when we stepped onto the summit and we had crystal clear views over the vast mountain ranges stretched out below. It was every bit as magnificent as the photos and not nearly as cold as I feared, allowing me to strip off the massive down parka and break out some celebratory dance moves.
Since most of the other teams were heading out when we arrived, we were able to enjoy the success of making it to the top for about 30 minutes and truly soak in the stunning landscapes surrounding the mountain. By the time we made it back to 17k Camp, it had been nearly a 13 hour day of climbing and we were fully ready to eat our warm dinners and immediately pass out.
Day 16- Return to 14k Camp
It was a slow start in the morning as we ate breakfast and packed everything up to begin the descent. We saw other teams starting to make their way up the Autobahn and then eventually turn back as the wind was much more intense than the previous two days. The hike down the ridge was just as difficult, especially as we were all still a little spent from the summit push. As we descended into 14k Camp it was amazing the difference of how much warmer it felt and how noticeably thicker the air was to breathe.
The guides debated for a while if we should death march off the mountain that night to make it to Base Camp or if we should rest and head out the following night. The other teams all headed out that evening, but we ended up staying to give more time for rest and recovery before leaving. The positive aspect was that we weren’t going from 17k to Base Camp all in one day, but the risk was that we could miss the weather window for flights off the glacier. Once the decision was made though, we started setting up tents in our previous camp site and settling in for the night.
Day 17-18- Return to Base Camp
The extended break was more than a full rest day as we had to wait until evening to depart so that the snow would be the coldest and most compact. At nearly 9pm we left camp with all our gear split between packs and sleds again. The descent was challenging in different ways as we had to pay very close attention to the rope tension to prevent the person in front of us on the ropes from getting clobbered by their own sleds. The whole time I was stressed out, trying to make sure I was carefully controlling the sled in front of me without pulling the person backwards while also watching my sled to make sure it didn’t wipe me out on any of the steep portions.
We made it back to 14k Camp where we picked up some items that we had cached and the guides disposed of the waste in one of the glaciers (which is a little wild that it can safely be disposed of because of how deep it is!). We switched back over to our snowshoes and headed down the Kalhitna Glacier. It was amazing how different the same mountain looked just a few weeks after our initial crossing as many of the crevasses had expanded significantly. The guides led the way across the maze, stopping to probe the snow at visibly weak points to ensure we could safely cross over. Only once did someone on the team yell out 'falling!' as they went into one of the crevasses, but they quickly got out and we continued forward. Around 6am we finally made it to the aptly named ‘Heartbreak Hill,’ the small hill leading back up to the airplane strip. Since it was near the end of the season we had to climb the double heartbreak to make our way up to a higher airstrip since the mountain had melted so much. We bundled up and took a short nap beside the runway while we waited to hear if the planes would be able to make it in.
Just before 8am we were woken up with the great news that the planes were coming in and we would be flying out the morning! We drug our gear back to the runway and loaded everything up. Once we landed in Talkeetna, we were greeted by a breakfast spread of fresh fruits and a side of champagne! Even though we looked like trolls and probably smelled delightful after not showering in over two weeks, everyone warmly greeted us back. We all started gear turn in and completing final requirements while we waited to check into our hotels. By early afternoon we were final able to take our hot showers and quick recovery naps before our celebratory dinner out on the town!
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