Life of snow

What happens when all you live in is snow. Not the good kind-not the kind that clings to trees or deep powder for skiing or snowman snow. It is the kind that infiltrates your every pore, waking moment and falls on your face in its frosty form from the tent every time the wind blows. The kind that you must slog through in snowshoes, dig many feet into to create a kitchen and melt untold cubic yards of to make gallons of water for everyone.

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

5 Guys, 4 Legs, 3 Wars, 2 Generations, 1 Mountain

I met a pretty amazing group of people today.  Five guys that I will be guiding up Denali over the coming weeks.  There are only 4 legs among them!  It has brought upon me a whole new perspective on life and mobility and our bodies and I've spent less than 8 hours with them.  After 25 more days with this group my life will be profoundly changed.

It didn't quite hit me until after over 7 hours with them today about what it might be like to have no legs.  I had only imagined this.  Last night I looked down at my legs and tried to imagine that they were not there.  I truly couldn't.  After some time with this group today I only began to try to understand what that may be like.  Right now my legs are the only thing that drive my life.  From running to climbing to getting out of bed in the morning.  And how easily things could change to having to put on a leg to do such things.  We spent some time going over ideas on how to charge their battery-operated legs and what might happen in the cold and high altitude.  We came up with few answers on how to deal with stuff.  We'll just have to get out in the mountains and see what we can do to try to climb this thing.  But it all really hit me at the end of the day as I was standing behind the group watching them listen to another guide lay out the plan for tomorrow--looking at all the people and only a few legs.  Looking at people standing on artificial limbs.  Looking at truly having no legs.

However, it does make it a lot easier to fit crampons on a boot.  The climber that I happened to be doing a gear check with sat down and said, "I bet you haven't seen this before," and simply rotated his leg 180* upwards so that the sole of his boot was staring me in the face.  Crazy.

There won't be another post from me until early July, but in the meantime there are plenty of other sources of info on our climb.  These guys have been able to gather lots of publicity for this climb.  Below links for they interviews with CBS and CNN and their personal blog.  Mountain Trip will also host a blog for them and AP will have a story coming out soon.

Mountain Trip: http://mountaintrip.com/category/alaska/
Blog: http://www.crowdrise.com/wsdenalichallenge
CNN: http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c2#/video/us/2012/06/10/amputee-vets-climb-mountain.cnn
CBS: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7411138n&tag=api&fb_ref=belowVideo&fb_source=profile_multiline
Spot Location: http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0aeN0XzbCJl1fAmDx3NfRm7YlU7Rd0qb9

Back from the Alaska Range

After nine months away I finally got back into the Alaska Range.  This time to teach a 12-day mountaineering course.  Quite a bit more mellow than teaching a 42-day course down in Patagonia.  Instead of writing too much on this one I’m just going to post a bunch of photos from the trip. 

Mt. Foraker from the summit of Control Tower

On the way down from the control tower

Denali.  On the way to 7800' Camp

Busy Day at Base Camp

Heading into the Mountains

Off to the Alaska Range tomorrow!  I'm teaching a 12-day mountaineering course with ascents of numerous small peaks in the area.  I've spent the last week or so around Anchorage so I'm really looking forward getting into the mountains.  Mountains are good for the soul.  I should be back on May 30--as long as the weather cooperates for us to fly back out.  

Here are a couple of interesting links for the Alaska Range:

The company I work for, Mountain Trip, maintains blogs for all the trips.  I use a sat phone to call into the office every evening. The blog at http://mountaintrip.com/category/alaska/ should be up and running tomorrow.  Click on the May 19 Course.

Also, the flight company, TAT, has a webcam to show you what the weather looks like in the Alaska Range at http://www.talkeetnaair.com/web-cam

Kahiltna Glacier 2009