In the last few days the team worked hard and at high tempo. The weather was calm, hot, and sunny. The team cached supplies up at 16.8k ft at the base of Washburn’s Thumb. The next day we made the hard decision to move to 17.2k high camp. We moved because of an approaching weather system. We would have only 1-2 days before foul weather moved in. After a hard push back up to Washburn’s Thumb. We loaded up our cache of food and many gas canisters. We reached high camp gasping. Normally the sun up there at 17 shines brightly until 1 a.m., but a large cloud was blocking our sun. Gasping for air we donned puffy layers and then set up our camp. Every movement was slow and labored. We went to bed in our tents and ate a dehydrated meal with some Pilot Bread.
The next morning we pulled up Starlink and compared it to our forecast from Belgium. Our forecaster, whom we had been observing weather for and coordinating with, had been predicting weather with increasing accuracy. Every automated model from the internet contradicted the others: some predicted calm, some predicted cold, and some predicted whiteout storms and lightning. Either way the current weather window on Denali was shutting for the time being. We trusted our Belgian forecaster the most.
We made a tight game day decision. Our team got prepped, fed, and wattered. We double checked our summit packs with extra survival gear. Each team had a foam pad, a bivy, a steel shovel, a 4 person emergency bivy shelter tarp, stove set, a picket and Thermos’s amongst much other gear. It was a heavy pack.
We set up the Autobahn, No other team was in front of us. It took two hours to get to the Denali Pass.
We took a short break and pushed past Zebra Rocks. The autobahn was a place if you fall from being tired it could hurt the climbers on the team. We didn’t want exhausted climbers trying to traverse it.
After our rest we pushed up to the Football field at 19.5kft. We were so tired in the thin air but lucky the sun was out. We had another push up Pig Hill. At the top Dean remarked it was the hardest of all the hard hills of the mountain.
We traversed the epic summit ridge. One side was a steep hill leading to the Football Field mesa of the summit. The other side was a many thousand foot drop along the Cassin Ridge. It was a dramatic corniced summit ridge, we traversed to the very top of North America.
Dean and Don reached the summit first. I asked Dean. “Do you want to take a break or walk the last 50 feet to the summit and complete your 7 Summits?” Dean reenergized said “Lets just go summit!”
We went up and touched the marker covered in Nepalese prayer flags and ceremonial scarves. Dean was quietly in awe. He had begun his mountaineering journey in 2010 and accomplished much. Garrett a few moments later on arrived and cheered in the thin air. I don’t know yet if young man at that very moment understood the accomplishment of summiting Denali in eleven days at age sixteen. His youth and strength allowed him to shrug off the altitude, the heavy packs, sleds, difficult sleeping in the sleeping bags and tents more than the other climbers, and even with the guides but it was still work.
We descended to camp and it seemed long but no one else was around—the entire mountain was ours in the yellow setting light. We made it into camp in the last few hours of light at midnight. It was no longer cold after we spent 12 hours above 17.2k. Jack was in camp and served us some of the best-tasting fried rice to the team.
We slept until mid morning the next day and broke camp. We headed down to 14k and dug up our cache. We checked the weather again. The window of flyable weather was tomorrow morning only. The team was motivated again to Death March out. Which is to say to keep on walking down.
We headed though Windy Corner and fought our sleds as they flew by us pulling us around. Dean and Brett having been on Denali prior times managed well but we all still suffered.
We got to Camp 2 at 11k and dug up our cache of extra fuel, trash and waste. We added it to sleds and bags and had to pull it down a few more miles to Camp 1.
We dug up our final cache at the base of the hill. Most of the elevation was done but we still had to carry packs and sleds the last 6 miles. All along the trail in the way back across the long glacier we saw holes where other teams had punched in and pulled themselves out only to punch in yet again. We avoided those thin spots.
4 hours later dawn broke on us at the base of Heartbreak Hill. It was the last 500ft of gain up to basecamp and the airstrip. Half way up a hill a plane full of climbers took off and we waved. We arrived and got in line thinking we had time to rest. The basecamp manager came out and she said the next plane for us would arrive in 20 minutes and we scrambled to get ready. Right when we finished our plane landed and we loaded and took off. It was the fastest time through baggage check and security any of us had ever had. Soon, the white, blue, and black world moved away beneath us in the air. Our view changed to brown, then green, then trees and rivers and finally roads, before we landed back in Talkeetna.
Around us dozens of tourists were getting ready for their glacier flights and glacier walks with their day packs and over boots. Dean next to some day tourist pulled off his 8000m boots and showed off his soaked and blistered feet. Some women tourist shrieked and ran away from us!
We got into our van checked into hotels and met for a final team dinner that night before returning to our other lives.
Don Nguyen
