bcborder
Member
I had the good luck to summit Denali June 19 with a guided group of 6 clients and 2 guides. The weather really cooperated for us: we only had three days with really bad weather and only one of those days did we spend the entire time in the tents. Summit day had light winds with unlimited visibility and temps in the single digits.
I want to thank the everyone who posted with suggestions in my previous "West Butt" thread.
Our trip was a unusual in that we ascended the standard route, the West Buttress, but descended the Karstens Ridge/Muldrow glacier route and walked out to Wonder Lake. The North side of the mountain is spectacular and very worthwhile. This descent normally takes 4 days instead of 2 days via the West Buttress. Given that it's typically 14+ days to ascend the West Buttress, this isn't a whole lot of additional time; however, with the traverse you have to carry all your gear over Denali pass (18200') instead of caching it along the way so it makes the ascent harder.
We followed a standard West Buttress ascent to the 17200 camp (normal high camp). From there, we carried all our gear over Denali pass in two carries to our high camp at 17600 on the Harper glacier and summited from the Harper. Our descent on Karsten's Ridge and the Muldrow glacier was more difficult than expected. Karsten's was very steep with deep layer of very soft snow. We took a lot of falls here. The lower Muldrow glacier was a nightmare of crevasses and soft snow bridges. It took us one 20 hour push to get though this section.
The trip is pretty well described in the guides blog:
http://3junedenali.blogspot.com/
My photos are here:
http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/559805380ChjCLU
Here's some climbing stats that I took with my altitude watch:
ascent descent time
Jun 5 1115 157 7:36 single carry to ski hill
Jun 6 2625 2625 6:06 ski hill to cache at kahiltna pass
Jun 7 3950 499 5:34 move camp, ski hill to motorcycle hill
Jun 8 1007 13 1:29 retrieve kahiltna pass cache 1)
Jun 9 3638 3704 7:41 motorcycle hill to windy corner cache
Jun 10 3225 121 5:31 move camp to 14200
Jun 11 748 778 9:26 retrieve cache from windy corner 2)
Jun 12 rest day
Jun 13 2241 2339 7:33 14200 to west buttress cache
Jun 14 3212 210 7:17 move camp to 17200
Jun 15 955 118 2:34 retrive cache from west buttress cache 3)
Jun 15 2224 2169 4:00 17200 to denali pass cache
Jun 16 1375 1007 4:06 move camp 17200 to harper glacier
Jun 17 storm day on harper
Jun 18 retrieve cache from denali pass
Jun 19 2303 449 10:07 summit day from harper 4)
Jun 20 1138 8419 14:35 karstens ridge descent
Jun 21 "rest day"
Jun 22 19:18 lower muldrow to almost mcgonagall pass
Jue 23 10:11 mcgonagall pass to cache creek camp
Jun 24 10:25 cache creek camp to wonder lake
Notes
1) watch started at kahiltna pass, only ascent recorded
2) forget to turn watch off, time wrong
3) descent is not correct
4) descent is not correct
After karstens ridge , I lost the ability to record altitude change
I want to thank the everyone who posted with suggestions in my previous "West Butt" thread.
Our trip was a unusual in that we ascended the standard route, the West Buttress, but descended the Karstens Ridge/Muldrow glacier route and walked out to Wonder Lake. The North side of the mountain is spectacular and very worthwhile. This descent normally takes 4 days instead of 2 days via the West Buttress. Given that it's typically 14+ days to ascend the West Buttress, this isn't a whole lot of additional time; however, with the traverse you have to carry all your gear over Denali pass (18200') instead of caching it along the way so it makes the ascent harder.
We followed a standard West Buttress ascent to the 17200 camp (normal high camp). From there, we carried all our gear over Denali pass in two carries to our high camp at 17600 on the Harper glacier and summited from the Harper. Our descent on Karsten's Ridge and the Muldrow glacier was more difficult than expected. Karsten's was very steep with deep layer of very soft snow. We took a lot of falls here. The lower Muldrow glacier was a nightmare of crevasses and soft snow bridges. It took us one 20 hour push to get though this section.
The trip is pretty well described in the guides blog:
http://3junedenali.blogspot.com/
My photos are here:
http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/559805380ChjCLU
Here's some climbing stats that I took with my altitude watch:
ascent descent time
Jun 5 1115 157 7:36 single carry to ski hill
Jun 6 2625 2625 6:06 ski hill to cache at kahiltna pass
Jun 7 3950 499 5:34 move camp, ski hill to motorcycle hill
Jun 8 1007 13 1:29 retrieve kahiltna pass cache 1)
Jun 9 3638 3704 7:41 motorcycle hill to windy corner cache
Jun 10 3225 121 5:31 move camp to 14200
Jun 11 748 778 9:26 retrieve cache from windy corner 2)
Jun 12 rest day
Jun 13 2241 2339 7:33 14200 to west buttress cache
Jun 14 3212 210 7:17 move camp to 17200
Jun 15 955 118 2:34 retrive cache from west buttress cache 3)
Jun 15 2224 2169 4:00 17200 to denali pass cache
Jun 16 1375 1007 4:06 move camp 17200 to harper glacier
Jun 17 storm day on harper
Jun 18 retrieve cache from denali pass
Jun 19 2303 449 10:07 summit day from harper 4)
Jun 20 1138 8419 14:35 karstens ridge descent
Jun 21 "rest day"
Jun 22 19:18 lower muldrow to almost mcgonagall pass
Jue 23 10:11 mcgonagall pass to cache creek camp
Jun 24 10:25 cache creek camp to wonder lake
Notes
1) watch started at kahiltna pass, only ascent recorded
2) forget to turn watch off, time wrong
3) descent is not correct
4) descent is not correct
After karstens ridge , I lost the ability to record altitude change
