Denali With No Legs

Sitting in the Anchorage airport now waiting to board flights back to Missoula I am more exhausted than I have ever been after a trip.  21 days is a long time to spend on any mountain.  But this Denali trip was a little different.  As I mention there were only 4 good legs amongst the 5 clients.  This meant traveling a little slower and making twice as many camps and carrying twice as much weight.  Despite only making it up to 15,500 feet it was still one of the coolest trips that I have ever guided. 

Shadow of Denali from 11,200'

The drive that these guys have is unbelievable. I have had many clients with both legs that haven’t made it as high on the mountain and certainly no one has every pushed themselves as hard. 

Kirk and his famous one-legged mule kick

Campsite at 13,000'

After some hard days when I was exhausted I remembered that I had both my legs so really I was really doing all right.

Just a little rest break

Another challenge on this trip was dealing with the very different political views of these five veterans.  They are all about as conservative as you can get.  Except for a few Santorum jokes here and there we all agreed to disagree and didn’t let politics come in the way of being a team on the mountain. 

11,200'

View from Windy Corner

Getting ready to carry loads up the fixed lines

Took us 6 hours to build these two tent platforms (that we never actually used) in the ice at 16,400'

 Now it is time to enjoy a few weeks of summertime in the great state of Montana before I head back to winter in Patagonia.

Cool clouds over Mt. Foraker