Talkeetna, Alaska. The gateway to Denali. Arriving back at this tiny town an hour’s drive north of Anchorage was bittersweet for me. Last year, I’d attempted Denali, but was unable to summit. Actually, I didn’t even get to the second (of four) camps! Rewinding a bit, I’ll briefly summarize the events of my first attempt last year. A poorly chosen boot insole caused me blisters within an hour of starting. It was all downhill from there, and by the time we rolled into camp, I knew I’d have trouble. The next day, we did our carry to camp two, but things went from bad to worse. This, coupled with my hands feeling painfully cold, and some issues with my guide’s style, forced me to abort my climb. It was obvious to me that I’d need to rethink some of my gear, especially for my hands. What kept me warm in Antarctica didn’t seem to here, which surprised me greatly. Of our group of five, only one person summited, and that guy had just come off of Everest! I was definitely hoping for a better experience this year.
Fast forward to this year, I got word that Colby Coombs would be guiding my team a couple of weeks before my climb. I was beyond ecstatic. Colby is a legendary mountaineer, and this would be his thirty-eighth ascent of Denali. Climbing Denali even twice or thrice is rare, but thirty eight? Colby may just have the world record for most climbs and ascents of the mountain. If there’s any guide who can get me to the summit, it’s him. In addition to being an all around awesome guy, he’s the founder and owner of Alaska Mountaineering School, the same outfit I climbed with last year. We’d chatted when Colby interviewed me to ensure I had the climbing resume and skills to be a safe and competent climber, but this was the first time we’d met in person.
I got into Talkeetna early on the 17th of May… 2 AM early, where a shuttle picked me and another AMS guide up for the two-and-a-half hour journey northwest to the town of Talkeetna, where I checked into the Swiss Alaska Inn and crashed for a few hours.
It’s difficult to call Talkeetna a town, as the community just celebrated the population 1000 milestone this year. It’s basically got a main street with some shops and restaurants, a few airstrips for flights to Denali, and incredible views of the Denali range – if the weather’s good!
Turns out the weather was phenomenal that morning. Blue skies all the way to the horizon, which gave me some amazing views of the mountain, and which also bode well for our chances of flying out to Base Camp the next day. Gazing upon Denali is a somewhat surreal experience. In the native Athabaskan, Denali means ‘The Great one’
You first see the mountain peak in the distance about eighty miles away, but without a reference point, it’s hard to know just how tall any big peak is. Luckily in this case, the lower peaks of the Denali range line the bottom of Denali. Those peaks would be considered massive anywhere else, but they are utterly dwarfed by the gargantuan Denali, which rises all the way from sea level to 20,194 ft. There are often clouds at the base of Denali!
After checking out the sights, doing a Covid test, and grabbing a bite at a local cafe, I headed to AMS HQ. The nice thing about small towns is everything is close; AMS was a 10 minute walk from ‘downtown’.
I’d been through all of this before last year, and the process is pretty similar for all large mountain trips: introductions, gear check, skills review, and in this case, packing all of your snacks in the snack room (which is basically the junk food aisle of a grocery store… lots of temptations!) It’s certainly convenient that AMS is headquartered in Talkeetna. Other companies stage in Anchorage, so if you forget to buy a piece of gear or it goes missing during your flight, you’re out of luck once you reach Talkeetna. AMS has a full gear shop; you can buy pretty much everything for a Denali climb here.
My three guides would be Colby Coombs, veteran legend of the Alaska Range, Fallon Connolly, Denali Guide and National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) instructor, and Ayla Crosby, guide in training. They were all awesome, and I knew I’d enjoy this trip a lot more than I did last year! After intros, we checked gear and knocked out the snack packing. That’s when I got to meet another team climbing with the same itinerary as mine – Jason Wang and Grace Chen, adventuring couple who are on a mission to visit all 193 UN countries. I think Jason said he was on 120 something. They’ve been touring the world for the past six years!
After crevasse rescue/self ascension drills, we broke for the day, and I headed out to dinner with Jason and Grace. With luck, we’d be able to fly to Base Camp the next day! But I knew better than to be optimistic; last year we were stuck in Talkeetna for four days on account of the weather.
Planetary Muffin Expeditions 