Mt. McKinley Expedition

June 17 – June 30, 2001

 

Our team name was “Tsinghua Mountaineering Oversea Alumni” or the “Huang’s team” J, six of us are Huang Jiang and Min Zheng from Iowa State University, Liu Yu from UC San Barbara, Huang Qifan from UC Irvine, me, and Huang Zhining from Princeton University.

 

Dates of importance

Dec. 2000:       The whole issue was initiated by some old member of Tsinghua Mountaineering Team and discussed over the email list and BBS.

April 2001:       Five of us submitted the expedition applications to Denali National Park service. 

May:                Last member – Huang Zhining joined.

Feb – June       Preparation of the individual gears – down jackets, pants, sleeping bags, plastic boots, backpacks, stoves, outer boots, crampons, harness, ice axes, etc.  Preparation of team gears such as tents, ropes.  Physical training.  Enhanced stamina training.

Early June:        Settled transportation details.

June 15 - 16:    Members arrived in Anchorage and team transported to Talkeetna.

June 17:            We waited in Talkeetna Airport of until 6pm when we flew in the Base Camp in two groups.  It took the small aircraft 30 minutes one trip.  It was magnificent view of the mountain, unforgettable.  After all of us arrived, we arranged the sleds, roped up in two groups, and started to march at 8pm.  After 5 hours of relatively even travel, we reached 7,800ft at 1am the second day.

June 18:            We woke up very hot.  The strength of the sun was formidable.  I was shirtless in the tent despite of the snow beneath me.  We started at 4pm and reached 9,700 ft at 11pm, short of our goal of 11,000ft.  We found out that our speed was pretty slow when compared to other teams.

June 19:            We left 9,700 ft camp at 11am and reached 11,000 ft at 6pm.  Temperature got very hot in the day, I sweated so much that my underwear was all wet.  Then the sleds started to feel very heavy.  At 11,000 ft, we decided to cache a lot of stuff – food, snowshoes, a snow shovel, Liu Yu’s camera, etc.

June 20:            This day began with the Motorcycle Hill, about 45-degree steep.  With the sleds on, it took us a long time to climb up, particularly the second group (6 hours to rise 1,200 ft).  Then we passed the windy corner, where some members started to have high-altitude reactions.  Huang Zhining had a dangerous sled-side-slipping before we finally rested on the 13,500 ft camp at 1am the second day.  It was a long day.

June 21:            Easily ascended to 14,200 ft Basin Camp.  For the first time we had free time to chat before setting up the tents.

June 22:            Five (except Huang Zhining) carried some caches to 16,000 ft as acclimation.  It was very windy on the ridge anyway.  A team from Utah reached the ridge and turned back.  It took us 6 hours to go up, and took me only 15 minutes running down the hill.

June 23:            Rest.  A lot of eating and joking.

June 24:            We attempted to go to the High Camp this day.  We came up the hill quickly (probably too quickly); I felt the backpack was extremely heavy when climbing the steep Headwall.  After we climbed up the Headwall, we were so tired and had to camp on the 16,000 ft ridge.  It was potential dangerous according to the weather forecast, but it turned out to be a peaceful night.  We found out that our stamina and speed was really not good – we failed to reach the goal almost every time.  But our adaptability had been great, none of us has serious high-altitude problems.

June 25:            Reached High Camp, a short but rocky trip.

June 26:            Rest.  The weather was not good at the beginning of the day.  A cloud was hanging around the summit.  After 10am it started to clear up.  Two teams took the chances and headed up.  They were lucky – the weather turned great in the rest of the day.

June 27:            Weather turned bad that day, very windy (60 mph).  We had to wait in the tents.  We saw a team attempted and turned back.  We played “Mafia” game all afternoon.  A lot of laughter helped us on acclimation.

June 28:            Still windy, but clear.  We decided to attempt the summit, following a Japanese team.  We started at 11am, by the time we passed the Denali Pass, the weather became nice – we won the gamble.  We climbed for 8 hours and reached the summit at 7:30pm.  Great view.  Very windy and cold.  There was a layer of ice between my outer shield and down jacket – it was probably due to my body vapors.  We started to go back at 8:30pm and arrived at High Camp at 12pm.  We were very tired.

June 29:            We left high camp at 3pm and descended to the Basin Camp at 6pm.  We were informed that it is safer to take night schedule on the lower glaciers because they were melting in the day.  We rested a little bit and headed to 11,000 ft camp.  We had the worst weather this day between 14,000 and 11,000 ft.  New snow, whiteout, we could not see anything.  We heard avalanches.  And the sleds were difficult to handle.  We struggled to the 11,000pm at 5am the second day.

June 30:            We woke up at 1pm.  We dig out the caches and ate.  An old couple stopped by and drank our tea.  We found out the gentleman used to be a mountaineering guide in China, and we both knew some people in Chinese Mountaineering Association.  What an incident.  We started to descend again at 8pm.

June 31:            This day started with horrifying crevasses on the lower glaciers.  The glaciers were cracking everywhere, very different from what we saw two weeks before.  At a very complicated place, none of us felt safe to cross the crevasses ahead, so we had to wait for other guide teams to lead us through.  The final Heart-breaking Hill was also unforgettable, it consumed the last little bit of energy we had.  After we got to the base camp at 6am, Huang Zhining fell asleep on the snow, and Huang Jiang cried.

                        We flew out at 11am, and got to Anchorage on the same day.

 

 

The map we used for our trip, provided by the Denali Park Service.

 

Waiting at Talkeetna Airport to fly into the mountain (June 17), lots of mosquitoes.

 

Glacier (taken from the airplane)

 

Base Camp, 7200ft (Small airplane is the only convenient way to get into the mountains)

 

Moving up at night (~ 10,000ft)

 

13,500 ft camp, in the morning

 

14,200 ft Basin Camp

 

Head wall (~ 15,000 ft), very steep, fixed ropes were provided by the Park Service

 

16,000 ft camp, on the ridge, we were prepared for severe weather

 

High Camp (17,200ft)

 

Me on high camp

(Notice the nose protection?  It is made out of my soccer socks.  I used it because I thought about the wedding four weeks later)

 

       

Kitchen and cooking (It is very hard to burn anything on high camp, because air pressure is only one-third of the sea level.)

 

Denali pass, June 28, 2001

 

Before summit, on the famous “Football Field”

 

Top of North America (8pm, June 28)

 

Coming down, on 16k ridge

 

Returning isn’t easy, we were exhausted, and the sleds were nightmares to handle – they always tried to draw you into the crevasses.

 

Waiting to fly out of the base camp, 8am, June 31, 2001

 

        

Alaska is a beautiful place, where calendar pictures are taken.

 

Want to see more about this trip? Click Huang Zhining website, or Huang Jiang and Min Zheng’s video clips.