Strange Day Up High

Mountaineering expeditions mean different things to each member of the team. The concept of team, also holds a variety of meanings. Each climber comes to an expedition carrying his or her personal expectations, desires, ambitions and willingness to accept risk.

At Mountain Trip, our goal with every expedition is that all of our climbers return home healthy. We want everyone to enjoy their experience with us and we hope we all get a chance to stand on the summit, but will never gamble on our primary goal to make the latter happen.

On this expedition, we partnered with a Swiss guide service Kobler and Partner and began the trip with four Kobler clients and an IFMGA Certified Guide from their staff. This is our third season working with them in this fashion.

Yesterday the team set out for the summit when a lull in the intense winds that had been battering them for several days presented itself. Temperatures were still well below zero Fahrenheit and thick clouds obscured the upper mountain. Lead guide Dave Staeheli, with 40+ Denali expeditions worth of experience felt it was enough of a shift in the high wind pattern that it was worth taking a look at what conditions were like up higher.

As the team began their ascent up the long, rising traverse that leads to Denali Pass (the low point between the north and south summits), infamously known as the Autobahn (for a party of Germans who took the expressway down), the clouds parted and Dave could see long plumes of snow streaming off the Pass and the ridge above. He felt that to continue would mean certain frostbite for some, if not all the members of the team, and that this risk outweighed the benefit of standing on the summit, so he turned the team around.

The Swiss guide was a bit ahead of Dave and refused to run back with two of the Kobler clients, instead continuing up into the wind. Dave and the rest of the Mountain Trip guides and climbers returned to high camp and waited as the three climbers disappeared around the corner of Denali Pass.

The three of them, Paul, Brigitte and Bernhard eventually made the summit and made it back down to high camp. Two of them suffered from frostbite on their hands and face. The rest of the team agreed that the summit was not worth any frostbite and they decided to drop back down the route toward base camp.

Everyone is currently at the 14,200' camp, and will continue descending to either 11,200' or 7,800' tonight. They should be back at base camp tomorrow.

Ambition, ego and culturally different guiding styles came into play yesterday. We are incredibly fortunate that the only injuries were some frostbitten fingers and cheeks. Paul got very lucky with his decision.

Mountain Trip is not in the luck business.

We are in the business of providing the best possible adventure in a wild setting with the focus on getting everyone back home healthy and happy. We can assure our climbers going forward that this situation of having a reckless guest guide will not occur. This goes to show that being an IFMGA Certified Guide means nothing on a big mountain like Denali. Experience matters on Denali.

Thanks for putting up with my venting, but this was a highly unusual situation that calls for a clarification of what transpired.

Stay tuned for another post from base camp and we will post photos and video after the climbers get back to Anchorage.