Denali 2011: Faliure or Non Summit?
When I started to leave the 17, 200 High Camp on Denali without standing on the summit, I wondered; how would people consider this effort. One person characterized it this way: “Alan, sorry to hear of the failure, but safety first. Safe travels home.” I understand. After spending eight days watching the swirling hurricane-force winds on the summit; it was safety first. We never got an opportunity to try to summit. It would have been suicide at most of the time. Denali, well known for some of the harshest weather for climbers, had shown her stuff. Of all my 7 Summits climbs, I knew this one (after Everest; which I had summited the previous month) was the most risky. I could control my preparation, my health but not the weather. So what was this effort: a failure or a “non-summit”? Well obviously for me it was not a failure. I believe that every person I reached with the message of hope, need and urgency around Alzheimer’s is one person more than if I didn’t try. I see a climb similar to research where not every effort results in achieving it’s goal but it does lead to new learnings and that has immense value. Besides, not trying is simply not an option. However, beyond all the climbing, my 7 Summits effort is about Alzheimer’s awareness and fundraising; not summits. I asked for a pledge of a penny a foot for every foot I climbed or $131 for Denali to one of the three non-profits. I was 3,000’ short making it $101 but everyone made the full pledge as if I had summited – so Denali is a summit for me! I am humbled and motivated by your reaction to my climbs. I will always do my for every Alzheimer’s family, researcher, support and my followers. Climb On! Alan Memories are Everything Please continue to read this trip report from Denali 2011
Introducing Mountain Trip
Climbing the 7 Summits is challenging enough without trying to do it without support. I selected two companies to help me through this maze: International Mountain Guides and Mountain Trip. I am climbing Denali and hopefully, Carstensz Pyramid with Mountain Trip so I thought a quick introduction was in order. I first met MT on Denali back in 2001. I climbed with Bill Allen who was then a senior guide and is now a co-owner along with Todd Rutledge. They are a small company based in Ophir Colorado. Most of their trips are on the smaller size and often have a high guide to member ratio. They have grown from their Denali base to now guide the 7 Summits plus other international climbs. I ran into Bill both on Vinson and Everest just this year! Of interest, ski trips of any nature seem like their first love! I had a chance before I left for my Denali climb to ask Todd a few questions: Q: What is one thing people don’t know about Mountain Trip that you want them to know? People might tend to associate Mountain Trip only with Alaska. We have such a long and rich tradition of guiding Denali, find that I think we’ve been somewhat pigeion-holed as only being Denali guides. While Denali has certainly been our focus, it has also served to provide us with a solid foundation upon which to build our international expedition program. We have taken the decades of lessons learned from guiding in one of the most challenging environments in the world and applied them to how we guide elsewhere, with really exciting results. Q: You recently added Everest to your trips. How has that gone? We are really pleased with the evolution of our Everest program. It is completely member-driven, in that we began offering Everest at the request of climbers who had joined us on Denali and elsewhere. They requested an Everest experience that was a bit more personal and custom-feeling than what they saw being offered by other outfitters. Q: How many people do you guide each year on Denali and what is your success rate? We have guided well over 100 people on Denali for each of the last five years. We track our expedition success rates, rather than individual success rates, because we feel that provides a prospective climber with an idea of how probable their chances of getting a shot at the top might be if they prepare sufficiently, as there are so many random variables that prevent individuals from summitting that we have no control over, such as the fellow who’s wife hands him divorce papers two weeks before his climb or the woman who picks up a respiratory infection whilst flying from the other side of the world. Our expedition success rate since 2004 has been over 85% and we’ve had 11 out of 12 teams stand on top so far this season. Q: Any thoughts on the difficult year thus far on Denali (7 deaths from multiple expeditions)? This year has been a tragic reminder that we all walk in a thin, gray zone up high on Denali. Everyone who goes high on a big, cold mountain like Denali needs to make that decision with proper deliberation. As a team, we all have jobs to do and each team member needs to perform their job to the of their ability, and needs to communicate with their team members if anything seems out of sync with the team’s plan. Occasionally, despite having a good plan and redundancy in back-up plans, circumstances can cascade in such a way that climbers are left no good options, and we certainly saw that occur this spring. It is inexplicably sad to consider how hard it must be for the families and friends of climbers who left home for a few weeks’ vacation on a big, beautiful mountain that provides so many with such fulfillment, and yet their loved one did not return. The dichotomy of the Denali experience was very apparent this year, as it can also be very unforgiving. Thanks Todd and Bill. Here’s to a safe and successful climb Climb On! Alan Memories are Everything