Chris is signed up for an expedition to climb Denali in July this summer with Mountain Trip. So he brought his family of seasoned mountaineers along with him to take a Denali Prep. Course. Chris, Dorris, Matthew and Isabelle, plus Bill and myself headed out from the Southwest office on Friday morning. The hike in was under stellar weather, and went by smoothly considering we were pulling a sled through some thick trees. We built a pretty plush camp with walls for wind block and a kitchen with benches, tables and shelves.
Before we left Durango to head into the mountains the weather report was not looking so good. It called for 70% chance of snow for three of the four days. So we were pleasantly surprised to wake up to a cloudless sky the first morning. We got up and went over Avalanche Awareness, did some beacon searches, talked about search techniques, and digging techniques. We split into two teams and had a timed beacon search competition with a Snickers bar as the prize. Matthew and Isabelle won with a time of 4 min. 45 seconds! After some food we went over snow anchors and built and tested them. Then it was on to Crevasse Rescue, and some team arresting. It was a lot of information to retain but everyone did great!
The next morning we again woke to clear skies decided to try for the summit of Snowdon. It had snowed a little the night before so we decided to climb the West Buttress instead of the Naked Lady Couloir. The West Buttress is a little more technical but more conservative in respect to avalanches. Everyone did great under some challenging conditions(Matthew lost the sole of his shoe and the Buttress was covered with a few inches of snow making finding holds difficult).
On the final day we went over some fixed rope travel and packed up camp to hike out.
I was really impressed with how well everyone did during the 4 days we were out. It is easy to get ornery when stressed physically and mentally, but everyone was pleasant throughout the course.
Great Job!
BK
