Sunday, June 16, 2024 - 2:57 am PT

We chose this.

That’s crucial to remember the fifth day that you’re pulling on the same pair of socks  and $h!**ing in a plastic green bucket. Also, guides lie. Or more charitably - plans change. They’ll tell you it’s because of “weather” and that we’re a “strong team”, but I think they just like to see us suffer. There seems no other logical explanation for why they insist on passing every other rope including Dave Hahn’s - on our move up to 11 Camp. As though today’s walk wasn’t going to be a slog already - 3400ft of climbing, picking team we come up behind - up our cache en route to single carry the rest of the way to 11 Camp. The single carry being one of those “change of plans” due to the aforementioned “weather”. Add to this Seth’s excitement to “enter the pain cave”, and you be the judge. And so we spend the day cruelly retracing our footsteps up Ski Hill and the other unnamed - but just as vertical - slopes of the Kalhiltna. We are surrounded by the towering peaks of the Alaska Range - the mere glimpse of whom have surely inspired poets and painters (and Thomas) alike, but my world is a 3ft section of a neon orange rope dragging through the snow in front of me. Do not step on the rope. Keep pace; Seth isn’t going to drag you up the mountain. Do not step on the rope. Try again: Do not step on the rope. Breathe. You learn quickly just how many types of snow there are when your existence is reduced down to slowly walking through it for hours on end. There’s the firm crusty stuff - an excellent uphill walking surface when it’s smooth, if only you can tolerate the grating sound of the sled being dragged across its surface. There’s the loose icy stuff that resembles hail, but smaller and more of it. This can be okay to walk on if it’s not too deep and there’s a good surface underneath. There’s the heavy, wet, slushy stuff - miserable for both traction and the will to live. Then there’s my favorite - the stuff that is so fine it could be mistaken for a white sand beach, if only we weren’t on a glacier in Alaska. This snow has a gentle softness underfoot that makes traversal feel effortless - until your snowshoe punches through and sinks down several inches. Then I just hate snow, all of it.  We eventually reach our cache from the day before and load up for our final ascent to 11,000' Camp. The team is feeling the weight of the packs and sleds, but we make it in a single push. Work isn’t over when we arrive, as there’s still an hour plus of shoveling to do to create our new home on the ice. Eventually, the tents are up, the toilet is dug, the kitchen is ready for us all to gather together, after some rest and a reprieve from the sun. At dinner, we’ll celebrate Tait’s birthday with quesadillas and birthday cake. Only now do I stop to realize just where we are - how wild, how breathtaking, how inhospitable. And how much of a team effort it took to get here. So I remind myself to look up from that neon orange snake of nylon every once in a while. Emerge from my tent and take it all in. And remember just why we chose this.

RMI Climber Sophia Bishop

We awoke to another beautiful day, although day has lost all meaning without night. The clouds had lifted and the mountain that yesterday’s correspondent described as a bride in her white gown, now looked even better without it. Carrying half our camp on our backs and in sleds, we climbed almost 3000 feet up the Kahiltna Glacier. All around hanging glaciers were spread like coats of icing, melting over the ridges. Long after our altimeters told us we were at the cache, Dom lead our caravan up a cliff, our sleds nearly swinging in the void beneath us. He claimed he had taken us further than advertised because we were such a “Strong Team.” Such praise from an RMI Guide is an almost certain indication of a Full Team Summit.

Our round trip was a little over 7 miles. Yes, you heard right, round trip. We’re now back in our camp at the bottom of Ski Hill to make the same climb tomorrow with the other half of our camp. Sisyphus didn’t complain so neither will we. Unlike other beasts of burden, we know that the journey is the destination, and we appreciate each step. So, we accept every challenge because that’s who we are. To paraphrase David Lee Roth: We’re not like this because we’re climbing Denali. We’re climbing Denali because we’re like this.

RMI Climber Kris Reitz

The jagged, monolithic peaks of the lower Kalithna begin to make themselves visible again.

We have just torn down camp. The anticipation of this moment has been building even greater since our departure was delayed by yesterday’s fog. The midnight sunshine just beyond the horizon still illuminates us deep into the night making the time of 1:55am seem wildly incorrect. We begin to move.

It’s now 3:12am. We’ve descended the hazy 600ft from base camp and sit just beyond the danger of the house-sized seracs looming off the side of Mt. Frances. Directly in front of us as we sit and replenish ourselves with food and drink is Mt. Crosson. Just left of it looms the beautiful Mt. Foraker, its upper half hidden just hidden behind a small cloud system. Our rest comes to an end. It’s time to begin the ever so slightly increasing grade up towards our next camp.

As we move the air is light and serene. Other than the sound of our snowshoes crunching the snow beneath our feet and our sleds sliding, there is no other noise for miles around us. In my left earbud plays Fryslan by Phil Cook. The pattern of our movement becomes hypnotic. My world becomes managing my pace to avoid stepping on the rope in front of me, interspersed with seconds of beholding the ether that surrounds me. To our right, an orange and magenta hue begins to materialize in the Alaskan sky as the sun begins to return from its brief absence beyond the horizon. Looking upward towards it presents our desired destination, veiled in a partially transparent fog, like a bride on her wedding day, Denali appears. It beams with a beauty matched by very few other things in this world.

We continue forward entranced by the sight. The weight of our heavy packs and sleds begin to melt away as we gaze upon the peak. A solemnity fills the moment that feels religious in nature. There is no more music playing in my earbuds. It is just the rhythmic beating of our snowshoes that fills my ears, and this epic sight that fills my eyes. I am totally absorbed. Quickly as this moment came, so it did depart, as again the mountain would hide itself behind an immense fog, abruptly returning us to the physical realm.

Enriched by this experience, we press forward, climbing steeper terrain before reaching a plateau which will lead us to our next camp site. The going is slow and heavy. Chilling cold air pockets move through our path at times. We break one final time before making the final mile push to camp. Upon arrival our guides probe the area upon which we will be building our living quarters for the next couple days (hopefully). We finish just before 9am. Crawling into our sleeping bags for “night,” we adorn the proper attire of sleeping masks to block out the now powerfully shining rays of the sun to spend the day resting for the journey which is set to continue early tomorrow morning once again.

As I now lay in my sleeping bag, my tent mates asleep beside me, I sense a number of emotions within me: satisfaction, anxiety, excitement, connectedness, all of which seem to stem from the same place: a determination to succeed at this challenge as a team. I close my eyes as gentle folk music softly plays in my earbuds once again. “One thing at a time,” I remind myself.

For now, all there is to do is to rest.

RMI Climber Thomas Goossen 

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 - 2:13 pm PT

Stuck at Basecamp

Today was going to be the day, the start of the trip. The launching point of our grand adventure. We were ready. We had practiced our ice axe arrest, learned how to rig our sleds, and relearned how to use the bathrooms here. The CMCs. We went to bed anxious, ready, and excited. But that’s when the snow started, and kept going. We were socked in a cloud with no sign of any mountains around us and no viable window for a move to our next camp. So we sat and sat and drank coffee waiting for our time to come. When the sun finally showed itself, it was just too warm (I know, shocker) to head out. The biggest crevasses on our climb form on the lower Kahiltna and with the mushy snow from the strong sun/ warming temps plus the variable weather, we stayed at Basecamp. We’ll try again tomorrow to get to the base of Ski Hill, our Camp 1.

Wish us luck!

RMI Guide Dominic Cifelli

The team has arrived in Talkeetna with all of our bags!

Yesterday, we spent the day doing the hard work of packing for a three week expedition. It's hard to visualize how much you'll actually need and hard to come to terms with the sheer weight of the equipment needed for a Denali Expedition.

There are no porters here. We have to carry everything we need on our own backs, but that is what makes Denali special. You can't pay your way to the top.

We’re currently loading up the planes and trying to fly to Basecamp. Wish us luck! 

RMI Guides Dominic Cifelli, Seth Burns, Nicole DePetris and team

PC: Dominic Cifelli