A quick Denali update (more coming soon!)

Just wanted to post a quick blog entry summarizing my Denali expedition. All of my Denali blog entries were accidentally deleted and so I have to rewrite all 30 of them from scratch...not a very appealing prospect.

Anyway, as you know if you've been following my Twitter, I did not summit Denali this July. I was on a Mountain Trip expedition and we spent five days at High Camp waiting for the weather to get better so that we could summit. All we needed was 15 hours. We didn't get it. (The biggest issues were wind and snow.) Then we went down to 14k camp (the second highest camp) and I joined another Mountain Trip team that still had 10 days on the mountain. We managed to put in a high cache at 16,200ft in a white out storm that ended up dumping over a meter of new snow on the Headwall (a very steep, 2000ft ascent between the 14k and 17k camps) but then waited another six days for the avalanche risk on that wall to decrease. It never did.

Me at 14k camp after over three weeks on the mountain, with Mt. Hunter behind.

Part of mountain climbing is dealing with weather and the effects it can have on your itinerary and on your entire expedition. Denali was definitely a learning experience in this respect. All things considered, though, I am actually incredibly excited by the prospect of returning to this great mountain next June and July. I had a fantastic experience this past month that I spent on the mountain, and I would strongly recommend Mountain Trip to anyone who is interested in climbing Denali or any other North American peak.

Up next is Kosciosko--the hill in Australia that some people consider to be one of the Seven Summits--and Carstensz Pyramid, in the remote and exotic jungles of  Iryan Jaya--the other mountain that people consider to be Oceania's Seventh Summit. I start this journey on August 1st. Until then, you can look forward to reading a more detailed account of my Denali journey and checking out more beautiful pictures from the mountain. 

Flying onto Denali...!

And I'm off! I'm about to fly onto the glaciers of Denali on a 1:30pm Talkeetna Air Taxi flight. I arrived in Anchorage yesterday and did my gear check with my six expedition guides: Joe Butler, Yoshiko, Ted, Ian, Sam, and Travis--my Aconcagua guide. We went out to lunch at a fantastic restaurant called the Bear Tooth Grill. Yum! I went to see Snow White and the Huntsman with Greg Harris, an expedition teammate who arrived early. I'm actually heading onto the glacier a day earlier than everyone else so that I can do a skills course with Yoshiko and Ted. We are going to focus on crevasses and avalanches. On that note, I wanted to extend my condolences to the families of the four Japanese climbers killed in the Avalanche on Denali two days ago. Mountain climbing is a dangerous sport and at moments like this we must pause to reflect on our choices and make sure we have said all that we would like to say to the people we love. It is very sad that the climbers died, and very amazing that one climber was able to survive. I hope he is able to recover from his injuries and grief. We will go on the same route as these climbers did, and I am praying that we and all the other climbers on the mountain have a safe and successful trip. On a happier note, I am very excited to be heading onto such a beautiful mountain. I never expected it to be this beautiful. Soon the lush green forests of lower Alaska will be replaced by snow and rock. Before we fly, we ate at the historic Roadhouse Cafe. The portions were huge! I had the lasagne. It was delicious. Ok well this will probably be the last blog post for a while. In the meantime, you can stay updated on our expedition progress through my Spot tracker, on the RS Facebook page (Facebook.com/rainbowsummits), or on the Mountain Trip website under Trip Dispatches. See you on the other side!

South/North Switcheroo

Well, like all adventures, nothing is set in stone until it happens.

I got a call yesterday from my guide company saying that the other people in my group had cancelled and that I had the option of either going alone to do the South Side or joining a group of climbers and guides scaling the (much harder) North Side. I wasn't sure what to do. I flew to Moscow to Mineralyne Vody and still hadn't decided. When I landed, however, I met up with a bunch of guy (and girls) who were in the North Side expedition. I hit it off with a bunch of them and decided to hop onto their trip.

So it's now 10:30pm and we're about a 5 hr drive to Elbrus' North Side base camp. It's 90km but all off-road...should be an interesting time. I'm lucky that I'll have good company in the jeep though. There are 6 guys from the Basque country, 3 Canadians, 2 Indians, 1 Belgian, 1 Russian, and me, an American. It's quite the diverse group--men, women of different nationalities, backgrounds, and ethnicities, and I'm excited to be spending the next week and a half with them.

Anyway, I'll try to post one more update before I head onto the mountain, but no promises. If I don't post one in the next 24 hours then remember, no news is good news!

See you in a bit.

Waiting at the Mineralnye Vody Airport with the Basque boys

Off to Russia...

Well I'm off to Russia now. I've got all my gear packed and ready to go for my Elbrus South Side ascent. It shouldn't be too hard and, with good weather conditions, I'll expect to summit in a week.

I've never been to Russia before, so it'll be quite an eye-opening experience for me in that respect. Russia isn't the most gay friendly country, so I'm both wary and curious how the locals will react to my project. (The locals that I choose to tell about it...)

More soon!

Gear Check and Goodnight

I've always been a sucker for overpacking... and this time isn't any different. As Eliana, the guide who stayed behind with me in Mendoza, observed, I seem to have brought double the amount of stuff. Then again, better safe than sorry. I didn't want to have to spend a day in Mendoza rounding up gear.

Top 5 Overpacking Examples:


5) Bringing 10 lbs of yummy goodies... Most notably raspberry Clif Shots, Honey Stinger Energy Packets, and--my favorite--NZ's famous Bumper Bars. They're just so good! But when you have to lug all this stuff up 23,000 ft you give all those snacks a second thought...



4) 4 pairs of long underwear bottoms. My legs usually stay pretty warm. And turns out you're only supposed to bring one pair of long underwear bottoms. Oooops.



3) A humongous first aid kit. I blame my mother for this one... Her instance that I stay "safe" and "healthy" might have been my undoing on this mountain if I had really lugged all of the pills, bandages, medicines, and other assorted medical tools she had wanted me to carry with me.



2) A solar charger and a solar charging Steri-Pen (to purify water). Two comments on this one: 1) It seemed like a good idea when I was back in the US... and 2) Turns out Iodine does a perfectly good job (and is about 5lbs lighter...).



1) Bringing 5 pairs of sunglasses... yeah... the high alpine sun might be a killer, but 5 pairs of sunglasses is definitely overkill. :P


So now that I have all of my mountain gear packed into one of my duffel bags (with my extra gear and street clothes stuffed into the other), I'm ready to head off to Penitentes to meet up with my group tomorrow morning. I'm going to get my climbing permit from the National Park office there and then we'll begin our three day hike to Base Camp.


Awesome!!! So glad it all appears to be coming together. :)


Cason

Last night before Aconcagua

Hey everyone, I'm about to go to sleep; it's my last night at home before I begin my Aconcagua expedition! In case you didn't know, Aconcagua is the highest mountain in South America (and the highest mountain outside of Asia...). It's 6962m high. That's almost 7km straight up! It frightens me a little that I'll soon be climbing this great peak. I will update you all on my ongoing project and on my preparation for this expedition tomorrow when I am on the plane. For now, though, I need to sleep. I only have 12 hours before my flight takes off!

Night,
Cason