The Messy Boyz Express

All I can hear is the sound of ripstop nylon thrashing about. All through the night the tent fills up with snow and I can’t tell if it’s coming from the outside through the vents or from the combined frosty breath of its three cramped and exhausted inhabitants. The soggy tent wall slaps me in the face as I try to brush away the snow that has piled up on my increasingly wet down bag. My headache has subsided a bit as the ibuprofen kicks in again but my chest still feels like it’s being pulverized and the coughing fits seem to be getting worse. Every now and then John gives me a nudge to remind me to breathe like a normal human being. I can’t believe things could go so perfectly only to end like this.

I think it was sometime in September 2019 that I began to hatch this wild and ridiculous plan. I had already done a few trips to the Alaska Range, even a couple smaller new routes. This would be a big step up for sure. Information was scarce to say the least. According to all of my research no one had set foot in the Northwest Fork of the Ruth since 1992 and only a handful of attempts on the East Buttress of Denali had been successful, all by either the 1963 route or the infamous Catacomb Ridge. Aside from a vague photo in Waterman’s “High Alaska” book all I had to guide me was imagery from google earth and a lot of imagination. There would be a lot of unknowns on this journey. Was there any major overhead hazard on the route? Would we be climbing mostly snow and rock or would there be any major sections of ice? Like my friend always says, it’s “hard sayin not knowin”. Honestly the biggest question mark to me was the approach. After talking with Paul Roderick at Talkeetna Air Taxi I got the impression that landing in the NW Fork was somewhat unlikely. He was the last pilot to land there in ‘92 and since then the glacier had become quite broken. This would mean starting in the West Fork and making the nearly 10 mile trek through a very broken stretch of glacier, and then somehow finding a way around the icefall between Mt. Dan Beard and Peak 11300. All of this would be done on our homemade ski bindings while carrying our 60lb packs. Oh yeah, I decided I didn’t want to spend any time on the West Buttress acclimatizing since we were already starting in late April to have good conditions on the south facing wall. Because of this we would need to climb the 5000’ wall with all of our supplies to spend at least a week in Thayer Basin acclimatizing and likely sitting in some horrific weather before venturing to the upper mountain. Since the terrain wasn’t steep enough to make hauling sound appealing we would need to climb the whole wall with monstrous packs and likely spend a night or two on whatever ledges we could find partway up the face. After a week or so of rest in Thayer Basin the plan was to go super light from our camp at 14k and blast up to the summit in a day, afterwards descending the West Buttress route. What could go wrong?

Somehow I convinced a couple suckers to join me on this hairball odyssey. I had partnered up with John and Stephen a few times over the years between summer work trips in the Cascades and with a few minor adjustments they agreed to my crazy plan. Our combined technical and expedition experience along with just a pinch of mental instability made for the perfect team for this objective. I had applied for the JRG grant for five years in a row and so when I finally got it of course there would have to be a pandemic to derail our trip in 2020. Luckily Alpine Ascents agreed to roll it over to 2021 and we were back on track. We spent the winter and spring training and acquiring all the necessary gear for the trip. Even though we were all living in different parts of the country we managed to get together a few times to climb and ski. On April 23rd we landed in Anchorage and did some last minute shopping before getting on our shuttle to Talkeetna. The following day was spent packing our bags and trimming things down as much as possible. We also assembled our makeshift ski bindings made of plywood and accessory cord. After tromping around the driveway at the Alpine Ascents guide house we weren’t sure how long they would last but it seemed like we could get a few miles out of them. At last it seemed like we were ready for our strange quest.

Dani Kluberton was kind enough to give us a ride into town for our park briefing and to check in with TAT. As we crested the hill into town the three big peaks of the Alaska Range came into view. Splittertown. Three perfect days of weather in the forecast and then endless uncertainty beyond. Hopefully just enough time to blast up the wall. I had talked to Paul Roderick again a week before and he said he would try to squeeze in a scouting mission into the NW Fork. That morning when we showed up to pay for our flights and weigh our bags he gave me the bad news that he didn’t feel comfortable landing in the NW Fork and that he’d likely drop us off in the West Fork. Hopefully those skis lasted a few miles more. An hour or so later we were sitting on the tarmac as Paul gave us a safety briefing. He paused and turned to us. “How sure are you that you’ll top out that wall?” he asked us. “100%” I responded immediately. He paused again and then without any more discussion we loaded the plane. An hour later we landed on the Tokositna Glacier to drop off some friends that were climbing Mt. Huntington. We wished them luck and hopped back in the plane. Five minutes later as we began cruising above the main body of the Ruth Glacier, Paul told us that he would be dropping us off in the NW Fork afterall. We all looked at each other, eyes wide and full of adrenaline. It was all coming together! We touched down for a perfect landing and quickly unloaded our packs and skis. Moments later Paul was airborne once again and we all let out a roar of excitement and exchanged looks of disbelief. We stood there staring at the massive East Buttress of Denali and what appeared to be the summit in the background, a mere 6 miles away. We had arrived and our journey was about to begin.

The trek into the NW Fork from our landing zone turned out to be fairly straightforward. Even with our hefty packs and poorly crafted ski bindings we managed to weave our way through the narrow basin towards the base of our wall and camp for the night. The serac lined walls of the Southeast Spur loomed above us to the south and the icefall that comprises the lower half of the 1963 East Buttress route to the north. All the while we heard the roar of avalanches cascading down the steep walls all around us. Quickly we scurried across the far reaches of a previous slide. At first glance a large crevasse appeared to block the way for the last section of the approach, and only from up close could we see a small, steep bridge that connected us to the upper reaches of the glacier. At last we turned the corner to see the wall we had come all this way to climb. With each step closer I found my eyes tracing possible lines through the convoluted mass of rock and snow, wondering what would be possible with such heavy loads. We set up camp in a flat area in the middle of the glacier with no previous signs of avalanches. Tomorrow we would start up the face.

In late April nights are still cold and darkness falls for a handful of hours. In that narrow basin the cold morning air and our collective trepidation made it hard to crawl out of our sleeping bags. After a bit of food and coffee we packed everything away and organized our gear. We had decided on a somewhat interesting and committing system for a party of three on a route this size. The leader would climb with a (slightly) smaller pack and fix our only rope at the top of each pitch. Then, the two followers would climb at the same time on the same rope while the leader rested. All of this would save the weight and hassle of carrying a second rope as part of our already massive loads, but at the cost of making retreat twice as difficult. 

As we got closer to the base of the wall and the bergschrund, the upper portions of the face started to disappear. This thing was steep! Hopefully we could find a reasonable path through the lower headwall. After finding an easy crossing over the schrund John took the first block. The words of our friends Sam and Lisa from a few days before echoed in my mind. We had run into them back in Talkeetna, and upon taking just one look at the fully stuffed seventy-liter packs we were bringing they both told us we might not make it off the glacier. Guess it was time to find out. Halfway up the first pitch we encountered the first steeper bit of climbing. It was definitely hard work but we seemed to be going up. Four pitches later we made it through the lower headwall and onto the first snowband. We decided to pack the rope away for these more moderate sections and began to pick our way up the calf-burning 50 degree snow. My legs were screaming by the time we found a small ledge to rest on near the left edge of the wall. Around the corner we could see a massive serac that poured into a couloir adjacent to the wall. A couple thousand feet above that we could see a couple more tiers of seracs leading to the top of the wall. We had planned to hit the ridgeline here and follow easier climbing but decided on another short pitch to the right to give the ice cliffs some space. After picking our way through a tight ice runnel we were once again cruising up a broad snowfield toward the next rockband.

By 6pm we had made it roughly 2500’ up the wall and began searching for a place to carve out a bivy ledge for the night. Unfortunately this was easier said than done. As we climbed up we would continually see what appeared to be nice rocky ledges above only to find sloping stances with a thin covering of snow and ice. The same series of events seemed to repeat itself—Stephen, John, and I would look up towards a feature, sure that it would be a perfect bivy spot and decide to continue “just a little further” only to find a jagged and icy sheet where we had pointed. Each supposed ledge turned out to be either a mirage or a sloping piece of neve smaller than a single buttcheek.  Nearly a thousand feet and a few hours later, the desire to sleep overcame the desire to be comfortable. We dug a few small seats and collapsed exhausted into our taut harnesses.

 We had decided to bring liquid fuel and a Whisperlite stove for the trip and John nervously watched as I set up and melted snow on the cramped perch with a 3000’ drop below me. After a quick dinner of couscous, we curled up for an uncomfortable night but stared out at the best views of the Alaska Range any of us had ever seen.  The dramatic upper reaches of the NW Fork sat below us. The whole of the Ruth Gorge and Mount Huntington loomed in the background and the summit of Denali stood sentinel above us.

 I wouldn’t say I slept much that night but it was nice to at least give the calves a rest for a few hours. In the morning we melted snow  and waited for the sun to creep up to our perch on the wall. We all decided that another night on the wall was a grim prospect as the weather pattern shifted from clear blue skies to swirling clouds. As the day drew on we became engulfed in a foggy whiteout on the face and a cold breeze interrupted the warm sunlight we had become accustomed to. The climbing on the upper headwall was excellent— short steep ice runnels and thin veins of snice weaving through the granite walls. Every fork in the maze of icy ribbons felt like a choice between two doors, one leading to the top of the buttress, the other a dead end. We followed our noses, making only a single wrong turn before making our escape out right.

The final portion of the wall was an agonizing and grueling snowfield that seemed to go on forever. The team was definitely losing steam at this point and our massive backpacks began to feel like boat anchors dragging us down towards the glacier below. I remember John saying that he was reaching his maximum fitness threshold and I couldn’t help but agree. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so obliterated in all my life. Stephen took the unenviable job of breaking trail up the final 500’ and motivated us to keep pushing to the top of the wall. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I took the last step to reach the top of the buttress. Thirty-two hours ago we had started up this unclimbed feature, and now we had actually done it—the first people to set foot on this part of the mountain in thirty years. The vast flat expanse of Thayer Basin lay in front of us with the upper Karstens Ridge leading to the summit. It was like being on the moon. I gave Stephen a big hug and gave a big whoop! I was so happy and proud of us all. John crested the top a few minutes later and we both congratulated him.

Still there was work to be done. After a quick rest and a few bites to eat we began setting up camp. We would be staying here for a couple nights to rest and recover before making the trek into Thayer Basin. It also appeared that our weather window was closing for the time being. Our brief view of the upper mountain disappeared in the whiteout and the winds began to pick up. It was cold when the wind blew and the sun slipped into the fog, a heavy reminder that it was still April at 14000’ in the Alaska Range. We made dinner and settled in for the night.

 It was at this point we began to realize how woefully inadequate our three man single wall tent was for this trip. Condensation and snow blew in through the vents frosting our sleeping bags. We woke the next morning each laying in a pile of frozen breath crystals and spindrift. Over the course of the next three days our bags continued to transform from warm tubes of shelter into sad soggy messes. We also began to realize that the combination of a white gas stove and a tent with no vestibule might have been a mistake. The cold temperatures and wind made lighting the gas a tedious chore that risked frostbiting fingers, and the priming cup had trouble getting warm enough to turn the liquid fuel into gas. We were scraping by, but the thought of going higher on the mountain with crumpled and frozen clumps of down wasn’t exactly giving us a warm and fuzzy feeling. We would need a break in the weather to let things dry out before we could go higher.

On the second morning camped above the wall I stepped outside the tent to take a piss. The night before I had been kept awake battling a pretty gnarly headache. It wasn’t the first time I’d gotten a headache at altitude, but this time something just didn’t seem right. As I walked back towards the tent I coughed a pinkish substance onto the snow. I just kind of stared at it for a while. Fuck. I slid back into the tent and layed in my soggy bag until the boys woke up. I told them I might have HAPE and we all just sat there in silence for a bit. What were our options for descent? The best way down involved climbing at least 1500’ to where the South Buttress meets Thayer Basin and then descending the ridge down to Kahiltna Basecamp. I was feeling pretty shitty and having a hard time just walking around camp so I didn’t know how realistic that idea was. Another option would be to descend down towards the Traleika icefall at around 11000’. The problem with this option was that if dropping 3000’ wasn’t enough to make me feel better we’d be committed to dropping into a more unknown side of the mountain with very broken glacial terrain and not exactly an easy way out. Going back down the route also posed many problems with our single rope and lots of traversing terrain. I didn’t feel very up to that either. With our sleeping bags still needing to dry out we decided to wait another day in hopes that I’d feel a bit better and we could try to make the trek across the basin to the South Buttress.

I tried to rest in our cramped tent but each time I started to drift off to sleep I would start hyperventilating and choking on the thin air. Every few minutes John would give me a nudge to wake me up, reminding me to breathe. All we had for meds were 200mg tablets of ibuprofen which began to lose their effect on my raging headache. I felt like my chest was getting crushed and had started to have these coughing fits. I began to feel a deep sense of dread and helplessness. It was soul crushing and with the weather not giving up I was starting to get a little scared up there. The next morning I woke up and felt the worst I had yet. Barely able to crawl out of the tent or even drink water, I told John and Stephen that I didn’t think I could make the trek across Thayer Basin. We all made the hard decision to get in touch with the park and initiate a rescue.

After a few hours of communication with the park service I heard the familiar sound of distant rotors approaching our camp. The winds had died down and visibility was back. Andy Hermanky has got to be one of the best helicopter pilots in the business and has been the NPS rescue pilot for the past 11 years. As we watched him circle around our camp looking for a place to land the winds picked up ever so slightly. The cold thin air can be unforgivable up at those elevations for a machine like that and so conditions need to be nearly perfect to make a landing. After a while Andy decided he didn’t like what he saw and flew back down to Kahiltna Basecamp. Our radio crackled and he told us he would return with oxygen and meds to drop nearby. The winds were too strong to land today. Fuck. I’ve played this waiting game before. I’ve learned not to get my hopes up and just sit tight. An hour later we heard the helicopter approaching for another attempt. He circled again but this time when the radio crackled Andy said he would try to land. The winds had backed off maybe just enough and a couple hundred yards away he touched down. I could only limp in agony as I made what felt like a very long walk to the chopper. There’s definitely no way I would have made it to the South Buttress. At last I climbed into the cockpit and Tucker, the lead climbing ranger, hooked me up to the oxygen on board. Moments later Andy whisked us away as I waved goodbye to John and Stephen. They would start descending the South Buttress now that I was safely on my way out. I’d see them in a couple days.

After a quick stop in basecamp to pick up a medic we flew back to Talkeetna. I already felt a bit better down at 7600’. The tarmac down in town felt even better but my mind was hazy. It was hard to imagine that an hour ago I was stumbling into a helicopter in Thayer Basin. I ran into Victor McNeil at the hangar. He saw me all alone, probably looking like complete shit and immediately asked where Stephen and John were. I could see the relief on his face when I told him their plans to descend back to basecamp. I ran into many more friends in town and gave the shortest answers I could to their many questions. I felt like I was floating in a fog and just wanted to disappear somewhere to be alone with my thoughts. So much had happened in such a short amount of time. We climbed the wall that we’d been dreaming of for so long but it felt so bittersweet. It took me a few days, maybe more, before I could really appreciate it all. The massive effort we put out to climb that wall. How bold we were to go out there with such little information. I am proud of our team for what we accomplished and I can’t imagine a better crew to be up there with. There wasn’t anything too cutting edge about the route. Hell we didn’t get anywhere near the summit. I’m grateful though to have ventured out into a forgotten side of the mountain and to have pushed ourselves to our physical limits. 

Months later my feelings about the trip are still conflicted. If you’ve never experienced it before it’s hard to describe what it feels like to be rescued in the mountains. Any time I think about this trip I’m still haunted by feelings of defeat, shame and guilt. I think back to our conversation with Paul Roderick, ensuring him of our confidence that we would succeed and that he didn’t need to worry about us getting out of there. I think of the burden we put on the NPS. This year on Denali saw an increased incidence of HAPE and related rescues high on the mountain; statistics we contributed to. Obviously I wish we had done some things differently. In our efforts to trim weight off our packs we left behind some critical items. To spend so much time at our high camp in Thayer Basin a heavier double wall tent with a small vestibule would have served us much better. Deciding not to carry altitude meds was certainly a major oversight and even though I’ve always avoided it, taking diamox prophylactically on a trip like this could have been a smart move. Our original plan had been to spend some time at altitude the week before the trip but work obligations kept us at lower altitudes. Certainly there are lessons to be learned from this experience but I also have to accept that we embarked on a committing objective that had some associated risks. It’s all part of the game of alpine climbing. I have mostly made my peace with it and I hope to grow from the experience. Perhaps we will return better equipped, now with a better understanding of what it will take to succeed higher on the mountain. If the boys are still psyched I would definitely go back. I happen to know that there are still a few secrets remaining in that remote corner of the range. Thank you Alpine Ascents and the JRG Grant for helping us set out on this fantastic journey!

The Messy Boyz Express, 5000’ AK Grade V, 5.7 AI4, April 27-28 2021

John Collis, Stephen Williams and Nik Mirhashemi