DEEN’ALI SKI

Known by many different names Denali is what it is, the biggest mountain in North America. Its enormity and title attracting some of the best and worst climbers from all over the world. June of 2007 I was to join up with friends Marcus Waring and Jared Brooks to attempt to ski the Messner Couloir.

Residing in the quaint mountain hamlet of Whistler, B.C I got the call to join the two implant Alaskan’s on their planned expedition. In the end I couldn’t refuse the invitation to come join the crew for some summer turns even though it meant giving up my subsistence job of tree planting. Oh well what good is money anyway.

After completing the planning stage of our trip by filling out our Park Permit more than 60 days prior to our climb we were pretty much ready to go. Shralpers Party of 3. Permit for 2007/15/06 – 2007/15/07 West Buttress. Jared our fearless and all knowing leader (on the permit) had been to the mountain several times in the past as a babysitter, I mean guide so we never had to look far to answer our quandaries. We warmed up as a team by putting our hands on some shovels and taking a landscaping job for a week, while contributing to the immigrant worker problem in the states as Marcus and I are both Canadians. Jared made it perfectly clear in that dusty week that he had no intentions of going to the summit. "I have already been there and I don’t want to go back". "Put simply the whole buddy up mantra goes out the window up there". "Besides if anything happens in the Couloir your gonna end up at 14 camp anyway". What form you’d be in leaves something to the imagination. So it was, we had a plan.

A trip to the Anchorage Costco and $150 split three ways later we were ready with all of our gear and one-week’s worth of food and fuel. Wait now just a second Jared. "I thought it takes a week to get up to 14000 ft camp where you then have to acclimatize for several days and then you wait for your weather window". "Yes" Jared answered. "Then you have to get off the mountain and what about the bad weather if the planes aren’t flying and you’re stuck without supplies". "Well it sounds like you’re on to something there Ryan". "Thing is, is that everyone else on the mountain is thinking that way too". "So they take all this time getting up the mountain ferrying loads and then when they do get there window they go for it and if that window comes early well then wvola you have an abundance of food". An abundance of food that takes the same effort to get off the mountain as it did to get up the mountain. "So what does any smart person do"? "They try and get rid of it". "And there we’ll be open arms, helping out our fellow man".

So off we set from 7800ft Base camp after getting dropped off by the amazing Paul Roderick of Talkeetna Air Taxi (T.A.T). We switched to sleeping during the day to avoid crevasse difficulties on the lower glacier and cruised on up to 14000 ft in a very mellow 3 days. Once there we took one day to play some chess and chew on some Diamox while trying to re-adjust to staying awake through the day. Our first ski day provided us with some pleasant powder skiing from the 16000 ft level on what is known as the Riblet a couple hour skin out of camp. We would become very fond of this zone as it is the most sheltered terrain out of camp and the ever powder hungry park rangers were not allowed to ski there. Basically this means is usual freshies. It was also on this day that we heard about some first descents happening on the mountain by some other skiers out towards the rarely visited north summit. I believe that was the final straw, for Marcus and I. Sick and tired of our acclimatization program we wanted to make an attempt tomorrow. But the Messner looked to be in horrible shape with blue ice showing in multiple areas. Plan B. Climb the Riblet to the upper west rib route were we could get into the upper Orient and on up onto the football field which then would lead us to the final 1000ft summit ridge. Then we’d ski all the way back down, face shots and babes the whole way. What a Plan, and that’s pretty much how it went minus the face shots thing. And well come to think of it there was only one babe. Hiking up the Riblet as we ski’d by Lisa (fellow Canuck) turned out to be a really nice babe, so that was better than nothing I guess. Sweet Summit Ski Success, time to celebrate. The following night brought upon a solstice party with 24 people cramming into "The Stronghold". A dome shelter that the N summit ski party had brought up the mountain. Complete with a rocking banjo player, 2 litres of Canadian whiskey and others going round we were the highest people in all of North America. We would wait out the next week with a trend of precip and winds occurring later in the day. Taking the windows when they came one morning we hiked up what is known as rescue gully a variation from the normal route to get to 17000ft. camp. The 3 of us ski’d different lines myself skiing the Sunshine face and Marcus and Jared doing different variations of the Dogleg couloir. All three lines were very icy with high a consequence fall hazard. Upon returning to camp we were asked in a smart manner what we were going to do now that we had ski’d all the icy lines up and all that was left on the mountain was all that "dam powder". The person who asked this question led me into some interesting self-reflection, focussing on my own personal motives for choosing and skiing a line.

When the clouds lifted our thoughts again turned to the Messner, which was now looking very inviting. Unfortunately our teammate Jared had already made his exit plans joining another party to leave the mountain with. Marcus and I saddled up and took off for the Rib. Up we went topping out at the football field in just over 7 hours. Marcus feeling inspired for another summit push went on to the top to deliver a plaque given to us for a fallen climber from earlier in the year. I on the other hand was feeling the altitude headache coming on and just wanted to get it done with so we parted ways. 15 min later I collapsed as I ski’d in front of our tent throwing off my puffy in exhilaration of what had just happened. Not quite 2 hours later we watched Marcus negotiate the crux ice fall at the Messner exit signifying his addition onto the short list of people to have ski’d this beautiful line.

Having "bagged and tagged" what we had come to do on the mountain we could have just packed up and left quite contently. But no, not just yet. With people still giving us food and fuel we thought we’d stick around to see if we could go ski those north summit couloirs that the earlier ski party had pioneered. In the next week’s time our window never really came. Our time being consumed up by assisting in a rescue of an Altitude sick snow blind man. Mr. Kobai-ashi was a member of a nationally sponsored Japanese team who was doing work on a weather station that they maintain on the upper reaches of the mountain. I was impressed with the ranger’s ability to in-act a rescue at altitude having the ability to administer drugs like Nifedipine and Albuterol.

If the rescue wasn’t enough excitement the size 3 avalanches that came out of the Messner and other areas was. It was our time as skiers to get out. Waiting for dusk on July 4 we pulled out getting in the last POW turns for the 06-07 winter. With light packs we easily cruised through the lower glacier and into base camp 4 hours later to re-unite with our case of America’s finest, PBR. A couple hours later there was Paul and Rico from T.A.T to take us through some evasive cloud maneuvers back to civilization. Oh the good times!

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