Konichiwa ... Sayonara

Wow - that was an interesting trip.  Three weeks on the glaciers, two different languages, one very frustrating trip, and no summit.  Actually, the weather was not too bad (one 5-day storm at high camp, but not crazy) and everyone seemed to leave OK with how things went, but we had the perfect summit day and weren't able to capitalize on it.

The problem: an older group with inaccurate expectations combined with a trip leader/translator who wasn't willing or able to guide effectively.

Denali is perhaps the hardest of the well-known mountains to climb.  Everest is higher, harder to make it to the top, but Sherpas carry all your gear - you don't have to haul heavy loads, just stay healthy.  Denali is two weeks of carrying 60+ pound packs, often coupled with 40-pound sleds - not an easy thing even if you've trained for it.

Instead, several of our climbers kept asking for lighter loads and slower travel speeds.  But you can't leave your food behind (and I'm not paid enough to carry a 120-pound pack), and we were already the slowest group on the mountain.  There are some things you can't change if you want to make it.  35-pound packs were referred to as "heavy" and our already conservative pace was too fast.  Not a good sign.

We lost one climber on a carry to 16,200' to chest pain - not good in an older smoker!  His teammate went down the next day when he couldn't make it to the first break without sitting down in a heap in the middle of the trail.  The rest of us made it to high camp (17,200') just in time to wait out the storm, but in all honesty it wasn't brutal, just long.  Our fearless interpreter nearly lost heart, but our last possible summit day dawned clear and calm.  Sweet!

Unfortunately, one of our climbers pooped out after half an hour, and park regulations require that clients be accompanied by a guide even in camp.  I turned around with him and another we didn't think would make it and warned repeatedly: If anyone else has to turn around, we're out of guides and the summit bid is over.   If you don't think you will make it the whole way, spin now or risk the group's success.  Sure enough, two hours later another climber was done and the only person who actually should have been on the mountain (the guy with the vodka below) had to come down without the summit.

What to take from this?  Robert and I are both pretty culturally sensitive, have travelled extensively, and want to get people to the top if it can be done safely.  But we couldn't communicate directly with the climbers, and the translator often wouldn't manage the group as we knew needed to be done to have a successful climb.  He hadn't been on the mountain before and didn't like to be the bearer of bad news - a bad combination for a place as demanding and potentially dangerous as Denali.

But I met a bunch of other guides and rangers I'd seen in passing before, built some relationships with them and got more comfortable on the mountain.  Robert was great to work with, and everyone came back with all their fingers and toes (how do you ask if someone can feel their fingers if you don't know their language?).  My nose didn't fall off this year, and we flew off the mountain just in time.  So we'll send some extensive notes to the office, hope there are more realistic expectations next year, and avoid the Japanese trip if not!

It's beautiful in Seattle and I'm back, and life is good.

Off to Denali, round 2

I had gotten time off this past weekend to go do a triathlon with Mary, but this spring's injury meant I couldn't train.  So Mary, after an epic time getting a functional bike at the race location, rocked the house without me.  (Nice work!!)  Instead, I did a reprise of last year's glacier skills weekend with some friends I'll be climbing Rainier with after Denali.  More beautiful weather in the mountains!

This stretch of sun is more than a little unusual for Seattle, and everyone is a little loopy with it.  The highs in town were up into the 80s, and the day I flew to Alaska the forecast was 90 degrees!  Heat advisories were being issued, skirts and shorts and bikinis were being wantonly flaunted, and I finally wore the pink dress that I bought in India last fall.  Yes, pink!  Especially crazy is that 90 F (32 C) is relatively balmy in most of India, but in Seattle, a heat advisory is actually probably a good idea.  Ha!

A few days here in Talkeetna, packing food and getting ready for our expedition, however, has made us ready to fly into the land of glaciers just to escape the mosquitos.  Mosquitos!  So many of them it's hard to sleep; I'm looking forward to being in a tent just so I'm not woken up by their signature whine and inopportune landings.  The lack of night in town means eyeshades are a necessity; on the mountain it means we don't have to bring headlamps.  Ever.  It's so light at 2am you could read a book outside!  Wierd.

Track us at http://www.alpineascents.com/denali-cybercast.asp  We're Team IX, Rob and Suzanne with the all-Japanese team.  Yep - should be interesting.  See you on the flipside!

Too good, too bad...

The weather has been preposterously nice for the past three weeks, but that doesn't mean all is well.  No storms, no sideways snow and buried tents, but my first summit climb was stopped cold by a serious (though injury-free) crevasse fall, and the second by the shifting snow and no-visibility of high winds on the upper mountain.

But the sun does bring out the silliest in us after a hard, cold winter.  We're thinking about publishing a calendar of Alpine guides...

The chopper finally flew, poop from the outhouses down the mountain in big barrels, supplies for the season up.  Nice to have good weather and a heli crew up where we couldn't see the next building last week.

So up to high camp, and up the mountain, and then 10 of us walked across a snowbridge that collapsed under our 11th team member, jerking one guide back several feet and eventually leaving our climber dangling unhurt but shaken about 15 feet into a wide crack!  A large section of the bridge had fallen in, but once he realized he was fine and we'd get him out soon, he was singing and taking pictures down there!  Back on the surface, the weather was too warm to continue up after such a delay, so we headed back down.

Second trip, another two beautiful days getting up to high camp.  Lounging in the sun, enjoying the unexpected warmth in May, a typically tempestuous month.  Summit morning, some high clouds started to block the starlight, then strong winds collecting snow over cracks and obscuring a safe route turned us back.  On our way down we walked out of the lenticular cloud that now sat atop the mountain and headed down in sun but continued strong winds.

Ah, well.  I won't mind leaving the mountain for a month and waiting for things to settle out, the summer route to be established.  The weather is almost too good, very unusual for this time of year, and is making us wonder when the hammer will come down.  Better run off to Alaska for a while...

Start of the season

Headed up to teach an 8-day course on Mt Rainier, one designed to cover skills required for going on a guided Denali climb.  As usual, the mountain decided to do a pretty good impression of Denali weather.  Fortunately, we were able to utilize the stone-hut public shelter to get dry and warm and do lectures.

On one of the first sunny weekends of the summer, tons of people were out at Mt Rainier, hiking around on the snow in various dress shoes, jeans, sunhats, and other inappropriate mountain gear.  So close to the trailhead you get all kinds, many of whom had never seen people like us hauling extra gear on sleds.  People-watching goes both ways, apparently.

Our first night was nice - great view from low camp, perfectly still winds, everyone excited to be on the mountain.  The next day, we decided to move to Camp Muir to avoid the incoming weather in the form of rain - getting high would make it snow, much less uncomfortable.

Ah, the incoming weather.  Four days of sideways snow (is this sounding familiar?), winds of 50 miles an hour or more, trying to make life pleasant in our limited sheltered space.  At the height of the storm, the last night, our climbers were shoveling around the clock trying to save the tents and themselves.  Well, that's how it can get on Denali...

The weather finally broke into two beautiful days, and we put all the rope travel and crevasse theory into practice by running through crevasse rescue techniques on the Kaulitz glacier.  Most people find going into an actual crevasse to be one of the highlights of the trip.  I mean, really, how often do you get to safely do that??

Best of all, we used our sleds to speed our descent on the last day - funny to watch a whole rodeo of mountain sledders heading down the slope!  Beats walking down any day...

Now headed up for two summit climbs before getting ready for Denali, and the weather is actually supposed to be decent for much of the time.  Here's to good climbing!

Back in the whirlwind...

Came back to Seattle and had a week off, and I'm not really sure where it went.  Getting over jetlag (perfectly 12 1/2 hours off!), catching up with friends after four months away, a bit of exercise and trying to organize all of my gear... suddenly a week is gone and it's time to work again.

I headed down to Bend, OR, historically home of beautiful spring weather in the nearby climbing area of Smith Rock, for a three-day recertification.  Every two years our Wilderness First Responder first aid has to be renewed, involving discussions of frostbite, fractures, altitude, and anything else you could have trouble with in the backcountry.  I got to pretend to have asthma, a spontaneous pneumothorax, and a broken shoulder for practice over those three days.  And it wasn't nice weather - it snowed on us all three days!

Back to Seattle for guide training/orientation with Alpine Ascents.  We headed up to El Dorado, had two days of decent weather, then four straight days of full-on storm.  Sideways snow, drifts building up around the tents - it was fun.  On the last morning, two tents collapsed as we packed up and headed down, glad to be leaving the mountains for now.

Today was nice in Seattle, thankfully.  I'm not quite sure I'm excited to be heading back up into the snow tomorrow, but it's time to start working.  My rib muscles are feeling good, almost entirely healed, and I'm looking forward to the season.  Back in a week!

Mumbai

...felt different than the other cities I've been to in India.  Most of it is because it's a more business-focused city, the financial hub, much like New York would be.  The bustle of business people moving about felt more focused and less chaotic than Bangalore or Delhi.  It's also by the sea, the first time I'd experienced the ocean here.

The ocean means many things.  It means there are fishing communities, and the slums that accompany this industry.  It creates a shore, that defining edge of land that evokes perspective and a sense of openness.  It enables landmarks like Mumbai's Gateway of India, a monument to "the landing of their imperial majesties", the king and queen, in 1911.  And it means it's humid as all get out.

You can take a one-hour boat ride to Elephanta Island, site of many ancient caves, one of which still has amazing carvings hidden inside.  There are actually three villages on the island, a captive population to hawk the many trinkets and clothes ubiquitous at such tourist destinations.

Having just finished the book Shantaram, I knew many of the names and landmarks of the city, but with no reference to geographical location - it was interesting filling in my orientation with the legendary Leopold's, Colaba Causeway, Marine Drive, and others.  I stayed close enough to be able to walk to many of the sightseer's destinations, but far enough from the tourist area to disassociate 

myself from it.  I hate staying in tourist areas.

There are an incredible number of old British-raj-era buildings that may still be in use, to some extent, but are in the inexorable process of mouldering and falling down.  It's a bit like one of those movies where humanity has abandoned a city - plants and vines creeping up walls, watermarks staining the outside walls, dust and decay setting into the books and furniture inside.  My sister would love it.

Next to all this, of course, are skyscrapers and innumerable miles of congested residential maze - I took the train 45 minutes north of downtown to meet Harsh, injured cyclist from the Sikkim ride, and other friends of friends living in the more populated suburbs and witnessed, among other things, the Oberoi mall.  Walking in was weird - I could have been in any bright fancy mall anywhere else in the world.

Hilarious observation of the week: Apparently the trend of artistic decoratings of some theme animal has arrived in Mumbai.  But what animal for a city in India?  The water buffalo, of course.  A series of brightly-painted offerings were displayed in a tiny garden near Churchgate station.  Ha!!  Gotta love it.

I didn't get to a couple of things like the Haji Ali mosque and a museum or two - have to save something for the next time...

Back to the mountains

The Nehru Institute of Mountaineering (NIM) is one of four government mountaineering institutes in India.  It is heavily subsidized, and teaches everyone from lowlanders who have never seen the mountains to those who grew up in the Himalayan foothills the skills of mountaineering.  Three- and four-week basic, advanced, and search-and-rescue courses begin with walking uphill and end with technical climbing and rescue techniques.

I had originally planned to hike up to meet two of the courses - a basic course and a search-and-rescue course that a friend was on - but my delay by injury meant the courses were on their way back.  But despite my imposed physical limitations, I was well 

received and made a great connection with the Vice Principal, one Major Thapa, who I look forward to working with in the future.  We had time to discuss many aspects of the climbing establishment in India and, more importantly in the short term, arrangements for me to return in the fall to work with one of the courses as a guest instructor.

Friend Sujay's search-and-rescue graduation formalities included the display of ceremonial NIM sweaters, a rite of passage he had experienced twice before on the basic and advanced courses.  Nice!

With some of my readily available time to myself, I walked down to the market in town.  Four women who had been walking around NIM earlier met up with me and invited me to their house the next day after a friendly, if quiet-ish walk downhill.  Why not?  

Her house turned out to be one of those two room affairs tucked next to the market road, one room for everyone to sleep and the other to cook.  Her family was either gone or kicked out, and the afternoon was spent looking at pictures of their family and friends and utilizing their limited-but-much-better-than-my-Hindi English to exchange basic life stats.  They are all about 24 and unmarried, and traditionally generous to their visiting guest.  The ceiling turned out to be a little low for me (probably wasn't planned with 6-foot foreigners in mind!), but the company was fun, and I look forward to seeing them on future trips to NIM and the town of Uttarkashi.