First "attempt" - the end
1 day to Day 1
After four days on the road, on July 6 2018 we showed up at the empty Walter Harper Talkeetna Ranger Station, the climbing season was already over. After a few days in the snow storm, everyone was leaving the mountain, park rangers were packing and flying off the strategic 14K camp, all commercial teams were descending, and no-one was climbing.
During mandatory orientation, we were told by a NPS ranger that avalanche season was at it's peak, that recent storm brought one meter of fresh snow, all tracks will be gone and that we would be alone on the entire mountain if we go: there will be no radio weather update, no fixed ropes at the bottom of headwall, and possibly no return airlift from the base - either have to prepare airstrip by ourselves or walk several days (on a glacier) to a cooler place. They didn't prohibit us to go though - we had our permits in hand. So we made our decision - call it off, until 2019.
PHOTO: Typical for Denali: more than half of the climbers fail to reach the top. We were two of those.
Sheldon Air Taxi refused to fly us to the base - "too warm for landing on a glacier". So we just walked across the active airfield (!) to Talkeetna Air and reserved our tomorrow flight - didn't seem the problem for them. We had to cancel it after all.
After four days on the road, on July 6 2018 we showed up at the empty Walter Harper Talkeetna Ranger Station, the climbing season was already over. After a few days in the snow storm, everyone was leaving the mountain, park rangers were packing and flying off the strategic 14K camp, all commercial teams were descending, and no-one was climbing.
During mandatory orientation, we were told by a NPS ranger that avalanche season was at it's peak, that recent storm brought one meter of fresh snow, all tracks will be gone and that we would be alone on the entire mountain if we go: there will be no radio weather update, no fixed ropes at the bottom of headwall, and possibly no return airlift from the base - either have to prepare airstrip by ourselves or walk several days (on a glacier) to a cooler place. They didn't prohibit us to go though - we had our permits in hand. So we made our decision - call it off, until 2019.
PHOTO: Typical for Denali: more than half of the climbers fail to reach the top. We were two of those.
Sheldon Air Taxi refused to fly us to the base - "too warm for landing on a glacier". So we just walked across the active airfield (!) to Talkeetna Air and reserved our tomorrow flight - didn't seem the problem for them. We had to cancel it after all.
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