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Yrstruly
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Kyle (that’s “Doctor Kyle, PhD” to you)
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There should be a team somewhere on the Moonflower in this picture, but I’ve never found them.
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PART I: The West Buttress
We brought WAY too much stuff. Mostly food, which was at least good for moral and karma when we gave it away.
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Butter was the secret to our success.
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Prior to the trip, I never truly realized that hauling loads on the glacier would be the defining experience of the West Butt. And it sucks. We single hauled the first day, which was brutal, then switched to double carries.
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The spell of good weather which started a day or so before we landed ended after we got to 11K. A storm blew in for 2.5 days.
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On the first day of the storm, we got a load to the top of Motorcycle Hill before caching it and turning around due to wind and low visibility. We spent the next two days in the tent.
Link to video of the storm:
https://vimeo.com/130123135
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We did not have the cook tent set up, so we had to improvise a little.
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Once the storm broke, we took two days to move camp to 14K.
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Early in the season, 14K was positively quaint. The first ranger patrol of the season had been stuck at 11K with us. Only a few of the first teams of the season had reached 14K before the storm, and no one had summitted since Lonnie Dupre in January.
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We rested, then took an acclimatization run to the top of the fixed lines.
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More weather moved in. NOAA even called the NPS to warn them of serious (80mph) winds forecasted. The NPS folks came over from their campsite and hinted that we should all build massive snow walls, pronto. Which we did.
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We also ate bacon and made quesadillas.
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During a lull in the weather, this little guy appeared while we were reinforcing snow walls. He seemed content to chill where he was.
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After two days, the weather broke late in the morning and Kyle and I set out to put in a boot-pack to the fixed lines. If we felt good, and the weather cooperated, we'd go farther. We made it almost to the 17K camp before we hit our turn-around time.
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The next day we headed out intending to make it to Denali Pass, or further if the weather was good and we felt strong. We reached the 17K camp in roughly four hours and started up the Autobahn, punching through wind-crust the whole way.
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Looking back at the 17K camp and the ridge.
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The wind was blowing right down the face and filled in my tracks as I made them.
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Although the day started out very windy—a few parties and soloists left for the summit before us, but all turned around as the day went on—the wind dropped as Kyle and I rounded Denali Pass. The cloud over the summit cleared out and somewhere around the Football Field it seemed like we were almost there.
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Then we spent an hour-and-a-half postholing up Pig Hill through more windcrust—at times thigh deep. Awful.
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We summitted 11 hours after we left the 14K camp.
Link to summit video:
https://vimeo.com/129469379
As luck would have it, just as we reached the top, a sightseeing plane out for an evening flight was passing over. The passenger got some good shots of us, which she was kind enough to share.
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Kyle summit pose
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Yrstruly summit selfie
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After we summitted, the 14K camp swelled rapidly, but weather moved in.
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Folks were anxious to move up to 17K, but the weather did not cooperate. It was roughly a week before the next summit by a soloist from Colorado, and about 10 days before a stretch of good weather allowed allegedly 40(!) people to summit on the 27th.
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Kyle and I wanted to do the Cassin, but with the weather it wasn’t in the cards. We took a trek out for some shots from the Edge of the World, and then descended to the airstrip to climb two smaller routes: the South West Ridge of Frances and the West Face of Kahiltna Queen.
Link to Edge of the World video
https://vimeo.com/129470464
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PART II: The South West Ridge of Frances & the West Face of Kahiltna Queen
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The SW Ridge of Frances climbs the left skyline up, around, and down 4 gendarmes (5.8), and then up steep snow, along a corniced ridge past the false summit (visible) and onto the true summit (not visible).
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We simulclimbed most of the route. Kyle and I felt the rock was easier than advertised.
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However, in part because it was too warm, we felt the snow was sketchy and heads-up.
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Kyle on the 5.8 crux.
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Traversing under the false summit’s cornice. It was snowing and rather windy at this point and my glasses froze/fogged up. Visibility issues (everything was goddamn white) made the traverse feel much more interesting than it probably was.
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Approaching the last rock-band before the summit.
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Summit. Windy.
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Link to summit Mt. Frances video
https://vimeo.com/130123138
East Ridge descent.
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The internal dividers in Kyle’s thermarest popped during a particularly hot day at the airstrip. The resulting blister just got worse as the trip went on.
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Some departing friends we made on the West Buttress left us two bags of frozen, seasoned, and pre-cooked taco meat (pork and steak). We promptly switched to a diet of 90% tacos.
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The West Face of Kahiltna Queen goes up the couloir right of center to the ridge, and then follows the ridge to the summit.
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We soloed the lower half of the face, and roped up where the gully tightened down.
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Kyle led a long simul-climbing pitch all the way to the ridge.
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And then I took us to a rap anchor just before the summit.
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We reached the top with the sun.
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Link to Kahiltna Queen video
https://vimeo.com/130123134
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We rapped most of the route, finding v-threads in old ice under the snow. It took longer to descend than it did to climb the route.
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We dried our stuff, and flew out.
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