American Alpine Institute Denali Team 5, 2012

I just got back from my second Denali trip of the year, and once again the weather ruled the trip.   This was my second trip of the season, and unlike the first was quite warm.  Unfortunately the high winds were still present, and were accompanied by lots of snow. 
With the strongest team I have had on the mountain I left Talkeetna fairly optimistic about our summit chances.  The first few days on the lower glacier were perfect.  Not too hot and not too stormy. 

When we got to 11,200ft camp the weather changed, and as is typical for that area of the mountain we got a lot of snow overnight.  So much in fact that it collapsed our cook tent and broke all our poles.  This combined with a little stove accident pretty much ended the life of our cook tent.  We spent the next day repairing the tent.

We did manage to carry a load up and around windy corner after a short delay. 

The following day we moved to camp at 14,200ft.

Once arriving at 14,200 the weather took a turn for the worse and the snow started falling. 

We did manage to carry a load up to a cache spot of 16,700 ft.  Little did we know on this day that the weather would never improve enough for us to return and retrieve our cache. 

After returning to camp a storm rolled in and dropped several feet of snow, which is fairly uncommon at 14k this time of year.  In addition to the heavy snow there were very strong winds which caused some very dangerous avalanche conditions all over the mountain.  See the previous post for some photos and a short movie. 
We had cached 4 days of food just below Washburn’s Thumb, and then sat at 14 camp day after day watching the winds hammer the upper mountain, and load the leeward slopes.  We were stuck at 14 camp unable to go up and get our cache, and unable to go down.  Below are some photos of some of our time at 14. 

With only a single dinner left and no lunch to hand out until we got down to a cache at 11k camp we had to descend without ever returning to the upper mountain.   The only team that summited within a week of us leaving was a group that had been sitting at 17 camp for 11 days.  Each person in the group sustained serious frostbite injuries in what might be one of the worst pieces of decision making I heard of on the mountain this year. 
The move down from 14 camp was not a simple walk.  Thigh deep snow around windy corner made travel difficult. 
We walked through the night to get to basecamp for the flight out the following morning.  It was truly a beautiful night…

Avalanches at 14k Camp on Denali.

Just got back from my second Denali trip of the season.  Here is a video of some photos I shot of an avalanche running through camp at 14k.  The news has just been released that there was four climbers from Japan killed in an avalanche on Motorcycle hill just a few hours after I shot these photos.  I have never seen such unstable snow conditions on Denali as I did on this trip and the video below shows just one of the many avalanches we witnessed over a 48 hour period.  

Lots of new snow and very high winds created very unstable snow conditions over much of the mountain.  This made it too dangerous for us to continue up the mountain, and just as dangerous to go down.  We were stuck at 14,000ft camp for several days waiting for the conditions to improve.  During this time several other parties were either climbing or descending the fixed lines.  Two of these groups were caught in separate avalanches.  One group of three was caught just below the fixed lines and lost much of their gear and sustained numerous puncture wounds.  The other party was caught just above camp and sustained relatively minor injuries.  The decision to move higher or lower on the mountain is often a difficult one, but in the conditions that we observed there was no disagreement that our group would not be moving until conditions stabilized.  When conditions were safe for us to descend we had only one meal left, and we were forced to abandon our cache of gear and food higher on the mountain due to safety concerns.  Luckily our cache will almost certainly be removed from the mountain by another American Alpine Institute group later this week.

Avalanche debris from a slide of the Messner Coulour.

A huge debris pile from a slide on the Orient Express.

The photo below is looking back toward Motorcycle hill, and clearly shows the debris and crown from the avalanche which is now believed to have killed 4 climbers.  Upon deciding to leave camp at 14,000ft we had heard from a group at 11,000ft camp that the hill had avalanched in the night and therefore was safe for us to  descend.  At that point no one knew that the avalanche was human triggered and underneath the debris were 4 climbers.

More details of the accident can be found here: Anchorage Daily News.

American Alpine Institute Denali Trip #1

I just got back from an early season trip on Denali.  The expedition was exceptionally cold and windy.  There were a few day on which I was able to shoot some reasonable photos however.

Soon after arriving at camp 1 the weather changed.  I have had periods of bad weather low down on the mountain, but never bad enough weather that we were not able to carry loads to our cache.  This storm was a bit different however.  Below is a video of Aili working on getting dinner ready.

Birds often get blown off course and  into the range with storms.  This unlucky tree sparrow spent his last few hours with us at camp.

 Sastrugi snow after the storm.

The next day we cached at about 9700ft and moved our camp to 11,000ft the day after that in mostly good weather.  A third day of good weather allowed us to retreive our cache at 9,700ft the following day.

The following day was fairly good weather but a little windy.  We decided to cache around windy corner this day followed by a move to the 14,000ft camp the next day.

The move to 14,000ft is a difficult day, so we took a rest day in good weather the day after.

The following day of good weather allowed us to retrieve our cache 600ft below camp.

Chris

Zlatko

Returning from our cache.

Climbers returning to the 14,000ft camp.

After a rest day at 14,000ft we decided to carry food and fuel up to the top of the fixed lines at 16,200ft.   When we woke up that morning we could all see that the weather was changing fast.  I was very worried about getting separated from our food and fuel so I chose not to make the carry, and instead spend the morning fortifying our camp.  We also took this chance to send Lorenzo down with Chad due to altitude issues.

A lenticular cloud over the summit of Denali.

Lorenzo heading down.

 Sergey and Vitali spent at least part of the day building an igloo.

Sergey and Vitali building an igloo.

The master builder at work.

By the middle of the day the weather started to worsen and by night the winds became very strong.  We spent five days hunkered down at the 14,000ft camp due to very cold temperatures and high winds.  This amount of time in one place on the mountain is pretty trying, but we managed to entertain ourselves by listening to NPR, an making some videos of both the weather outside, and our attempts to cook appetizing meals for ten without the use of our cook tent.

A short break in the storm allowed us to get outside and do a little digging and maintenance

Cooking for ten...

Mt Foraker after the storm.

After spending way too much time in our tents we made the desision to decend rather than attempt a fast trip to the summit.  I was concerned about the possibility of getting stuck in bad weather at 17,000ft camp after the ascent as the weather window to summit looked to be very short.

Mt. Rainier Kautz Glacier Climb

I am way behind on posting photos from the trips I have done lately, so hopefully I will have a bunch of posts in the next week or so. I will start with my latest trip since it has the fewest photos to sort through.

A Mt. Rainier greeting agent. Much more friendly than the Rangers. Actually the rangers were great! Not like North Cascades National Park.

Here is a panorama from our camp. Mt. St. Helens in the distance.
Crossing the Nisqualy Glacier.

Justin, Kate, and Liz.

Another guide services camp below us.

Scott near the summit.

Scott at the summit.

Liz with about ten steps to go.

Fist Bump!

The rappel down the Kautz Ice Chute.

Kate back at camp.

Heading out in less than perfect weather.

A panorama of the entire Muir Snowfield.