Weather in Talkeetna is better this morning, but base camp is still experiencing some nasty weather. We are on standby and if the weather improves are set to go at a moments notice.
Yesterday afternoon weather cleared and we got the call to go. We donned full mountaineering gear, only to be foiled by the weather as the opening disappeared as quickly as it opened.
Day 1: Planes Are Not Flying
A white van, filled with our team and several hundreds of pounds of gear just pulled into a weather bound Talkeetna. We were scheduled to board a ski plane at 3:00PM today, but with the current weather conditions it’s not likely well be flying today.
This is known as the “Talkeetna Hang”. I got to know this quaint little climbing town quite well last year while I spent 6 days waiting for the weather to let up. So now we wait. In the meantime, I’m thinking about moonlighting as a Talkeetna tour guide.
On the upside the summit success rate just bumped to 49%.
On the way, we stopped for second breakfast in Wasilla and I saw a beautiful and very well trained Sheltie service dog. I talked with her owner who has a heart condition and learned that the dog carries his medication in a little pack. She knows when he is about to have an attack and brings him his medicine beforehand which I think is pretty amazing. She was sitting 20′ from her master, not moving and watching him closely the entire time.
It it seemed like she took her job very seriously.
Met the entire team today and we discussed strategy and logistics in the morning. It is a internationally diverse group, with a lot of climbing experience.
Afterwards we completed our last minute gear checks and loaded up lunch food. My entire load excluding group gear which I’ll get tomorrow, is 89lbs which is great news. Even if I get 40 lbs of group gear, I’m still close to 50lbs lighter than last year on gear alone. Add in another 15 for myself and that is 65lbs less I’ll be dragging up the mountain
Weather permitting we will be on the glacier tomorrow. The expedition planned schedule is June 8th till June 30th.
Weather has been very uncooperative this season and the summit success rates so far are 39%. You can follow the stats as they change as well as get conditions on the mountain posted by the park rangers here: http://www.nps.gov/dena/mountainblog.htm
What is “The Danger Network”?
It is the system that I use to update my blog from the mountain. The technical details would bore most folks, but for the rest of you here it is. I use a network of highly trained weasels that can carry short 160 character messages (weasels have limited memory) back and forth and even allow my global position to be tracked. Once we start up the mountain this Tuesday I will be updating the Adventure Blog during the expedition via weasel-net and these updates will also be sent to your inbox. Sometimes the weasels make mistakes, so please forgive the inevitable typos.
Why Am I Getting This?
You are on this list either because you subscribed yourself or because we have some sort of affiliation and I thought you might be interested. Maybe I’m wrong and you don’t even like me. In that case, visit the unsubscribe link at the bottom and you will be unsubscribed , removed from my Christmas list and stricken from my will (Yes, I was going to leave you something). It’s too late to change your mind now, that ship has sailed.
Real Time Tracking Map:
The weasels will be released and the tracking map we will begin populating on Monday the 8th when we start climbing.
Supporter Shout Out!
A big thanks to Grab The Gold who supplied 30lbs of their delicious and all natural snack bars for the team. We will burn 5,000-6,000 calories a day while climbing, and these are, fast, easy, great tasting and the weasels love em!
And Lifeproof who hooked me up with the new Nuud (It’s not as risqué as it sounds) versions of their fantastic waterproof cases, which have served me well. If you have not seen them, the design is very elegant.
Of course without the competent team of IT professionals at Truewater none of this would be possible. They are so good at their jobs that nobody notices when I leave, so I added them to this mail list to remind them. I will be carrying a flag up the mountain with each staff members name on it so the entire Truewater team is going to the top with me!
Denali Summit Flag
And of course thanks to my wife Susan who is very supportive of my climbing and let’s me go play without adult supervision.
So I’m back in Alaska staging for my 2015 Denali Expedition. Also known as Mt. McKinley it is the tallest mountain in America and this is my second attempt.
Last year I acquired a classic wooden ice ace and confidently had it engraved with my name on one side and “Denali 2014” on the other. This was intended as my keepsake from the mountain, but as most of you know I didn’t make it. I wasn’t strong enough and was sent back down at 11200′ by my guide. After my experience last year, I was determined to learn from it and return as a better tougher, stronger climber. Indecently I had the “2104” on the ice axe struck through and “2015” added next to it.
Incline Training
So the first thing I did was invest in a proper incline trainer. I chose the NordicTrack 11xi which inclines all the way up to 40 degrees. I don’t have convenient hills or even stairs to train on, so my incline training is necessarily done on a treadmill.
The new Incline trainer is very effective and has made me considerably stronger. At this point I can climb 2400′ in one hour with a 50lb pack on my back which is a dramatic improvement.
The Chain Gang
Next I doubled my chains. Last year I was training with a 100lb pack and dragging 60lb chains. On the actual expedition however,
The typical way to rig an alpine sled is to wrap a loop of webbing around the pack down low and fasten the sled to this loop with a locking carabiner. This is how I have done it on previous climbs and on my first Denali attempt.
The trouble with that is the packs gets pulled out awkwardly and depending on the packs geometry the sled can pull on the shoulder straps as well as the waist belt shifting the load higher on your body and away from your power base. And if the sled gets out of control, it is yanking the pack to one side or the other which can take you off balance, which is not good on a mountainside.
I tinkered with a few different methods, and came up with a pretty simple solution that puts all the sled weight on the waist belt and let’s my legs carry all the load without wasting any core strength. It only required a bit of filing to enlarge the existing strap slots in the waist belt former and a bit of CA glue.
The result is a much more balanced pulling arrangement the puts the load where it needs to be. I have tested it with my sled training chain setup and it feels good. The only potential downside I see is that since the waist belt is now carrying all of the sleds load, I’ll most likely lose some skin where the straps contact my hip bones.
My straps are retained by folding a 2″ section over and drenching the fold with CA glue. It welds them together and creates a tab that gets trapped behind the hip belt keeper.
I tested it for strength by doing a Tom Cruise from the pull-up bar in my home gym with 240lbs counting myself and my pack and it was rock solid.
If it does not work out, as I anticipate it’s an easy matter to revert to the more traditional tie in method.
On April 11th 2015, I stood atop the summit of Boundary Peak at sunset. At 13,143′ it is the highest mountain in the state of Nevada and was state highpoint #28 for me.
I got into a bit of trouble on the descent which had me wondering if I would live through this one. You will find the complete Trip Report here.
Statistics
Completed: April 11th, 2015
Summit Elevation: 13,143′
Trailhead Elevation: 8,836′
Elevation Gain: 4,307′
Hiking Distance: 6 Miles
Boundary Peak Links
Trip Report
Blog Posts
Photo Gallery
You will find, status, photo galleries and trip reports for all of my adventures on the Highpoints Page.
Boundary Peak is not a pretty mountain, but I did manage to snap a few interesting shots.
Been driving all day, and was getting concerned about fuel as I was approaching the point of no return. I just stopped at a brothel that sells gasoline as well as the more traditional fare. It has sort of a creepy twilight zone feel.
This is the most desolate part of America I have seen so far. The brothel is the first thing I have seen since Vegas aside from a few boarded up concerns here and there.
It’s been a whirlwind of a week with very little downtime and sorting out the gear last night only afforded me 3 hours of sleep. So after running the typical travelers gauntlet of delays, indifferent airline employees and ridiculous security measures, I find myself driving through a desert in a brand new but dusty black Ford Explorer on my way to Boundary Peak Nevada. At 13,140 foot it’s the biggest hill This state has to offer so I have to climb it.
The roads approaching Boundary Peak are little more than goat paths with several gulley and water crossings, so I asked for the vehicle with the most ground clearance and they gave me the Explorer which I like. It’s sofa like seats fit my manly 6′ frame perfectly. It rides like a dream (I might actually fall asleep) and has lots of cool tech. We’ll see how well it handles the nasty stuff before I give it the Danger seal of approval.
The aforementioned goat paths present another challenge in that they are not correctly plotted as far as I can tell and are harder than hens teeth to find. GPS won’t help me, as every mapping system I have studied shows them differently so I’m not sure which to trust. I have read a number of accounts of folks being lost, one for 24 hours. I spent some time on Google Earth visually following and backtracking along miles of meandering paths leading up to the mountain to find a way in. So if I got it right I’ll have enough of time to setup a proper camp at the base of the mountain tonight and get a good nights rest.
So if all goes according to plan, I’ll be striking out in the morning to climb State Highpoint #26. I’ll be moving fast and expect to be back down in time for dinner.
Then I’ll head to Vegas for a security trade show, were I’ll meet up with my good Freind Rick Overholt who is hiking up Angels Landing as I write this. Well do the trade show together and head back to Houston next Saturday.
Indecently, we won a project last month to build a server farm to handle the bookings for one of the major Vegas Hotel/Casinos. I don’t have permission to use thier name in our marketing, so I can’t tell you who it is. Not sure if this qualifies as marketing, but I’ll err on the side of caution. Did I just say that?
Yes its true, we are taking another cruise already. I know, we just returned from a cruise less than a few weeks ago.
But the last was a ballroom dance cruise, and this one is a family cruise. We are taking, Chris, Nina, Hanna and Valentina (our two grand daughters) and Tatiana and Patrick. They are the “other” grandparents, we will have some competition. I’m not too worried though, I’m a pretty solid grandpa.
Well be back on April 6th.
Emerald Princess is now back at Laporte dock. We will disembark soon. Its been a fantastic cruise with lots of dining, dancing & fun.
This short video does a good job capturing the energy and fun. Dance instructor Matt Kelling shot the footage and I did the editing on my iPad mini with iMovie.
Sat down to have breakfast at 10AM with Magician Bart Rockett who needs some props for his new act in Destin Florida. I literally spent all day with him wrapping up at 5PM. I’m going to help him with some magic props. This should be a fun project, and I’m looking forward to seeing them in use.
120 miles from Roatan. We’ll be docked there when we wake up. Digging the new beacon. 72 hours of tracking and still at 19% battery.
I have activated tracking, for the purpose of testing a new satellite beacon
Danger is sharing their location at the MapShare web site: https://share.delorme.com/danger
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To learn more about MapShare and the DeLorme inReach two-way satellite communicator, visit http://delorme.com/inReach or http://inReachCanada.com
Susan and I are headed out tomorrow for a one week Ballroom Dance Cruise which we do every year. It’s a lot of fun, and gives us the opportunity to really hone our dancing skills. We will be back from the cruise on Feb 23rd.
Then on Feb 25th I’ll leave the country again for business trip with Entrepreneurs Organization until March 2nd.
I’ll be taking the new DeLorme InReach Explorer Two Way Satellite Communicator with me for testing, so you will be able to track our progress (not that watching a cruise ship is particularly exciting) but won’t be broadcasting any posts to the mail group. I’ve been tinkering with it around the house and it seems like it will be a much improved solution.
We are trying to carve out some time in the next month or two to punch out the 12,637 ft. Humphreys Peak the state highpoint of Arizona.
On January 10th 2015, I stood atop the summit of Mount Marcy the highest mountain in the state of New York. My long time friend and climbing partner Rick Overholt joined me on this climb, but opted not to join me on the summit. You will find the complete Trip Report here.
Statistics
Completed: January 10th, 2015
State: New York
Elevation: 5,343′
Distance: 15 Miles
Time: 2 Days
Mount Marcy Links
Trip Report
Blog Posts
Photo Gallery
GPS Track
You will find, status, photo galleries and trip reports for all of my adventures on the Highpoints Page.
iPhone & fingers froze, hence the absent updates. At Loj now putting hot things in & on our bodies. There’s a tiny room that shoots hot water out the wall!
Just finished breaking camp, everything is an ordeal in these conditions. Bars are frozen solid so I sucked some half frozen honey from a packet. Headed down
Rick turned back. Some Canadian climbers came along and I linked up with them. Found trail, we were 10 feet from it. Almost there now.
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