Denali with its south face to the lookers right of the Cassin Ridge in the middle (Photo: Maxime Turgeon)

We left camp at around 10 o’clock in the morning. There was almost no wind but it was very cold. I was ready before Magnus, but I couldn’t wait around for him because I was freezing my toes of, so I set out by my self up the Autobahn. I was racing for the sun that was shining half way up the face as I could hardly feel my toes. I had passed a group of climbers just above the bergschrund and could not see them anymore when I arrived in the warmth of the sun. It was still really cold, but nothing like in the shade further down. I sat down on my backpack and took my ski boots of to warm my feet and wait for Magnus. He caught up in a few minutes and then we continued to Devils Pass where we met a nice party climbing the mountain from the other side. They had a really cool adventure biking in to the mountain from the other side, then doing a full traverse, descend the normal route and next hike down to the big river where they floated back in small rafts all the way to Talkeetna.

Myself and Magnus hanging out at Devil’s Pass

Magnus snow walking. Mark Twight once said he failed to climb the West Buttress even though he summited – he couldn’t find any climbing…

Its all a snow walk…

But a very breath taking one… in many ways…

The summit ridge

Taking a look down the south face

Magnus and myself on the summit of Denali

Skiing on the south face

Looking up towards the summit

Mt Foraker in the sun rise. At the end of the descent I didn’t really focus on photos, so this is the first one just before I took of down the glacier.

After the icefall with the mighty south face of Denali in the background

Me having a rest in the tent…

Colin Haley and Nils Nielsen in camp

Myself and Nils, the south face of Denali in the background

Mt Hunter in sunset

It’s a long way from basecamp to ABC

Looking back at my sled and the view after Squirrel hill

And later on I enjoyed a beautiful sun set over the Alaskan lowlands…

I would say that arriving in ABC was the start of the fun part of our Alaska adventure. When we finally got there we where able to do what we came to Denali to do: ski and climb. And of course hang out with old and new friends.  Upon seeing the poor ski conditions Magnus quickly decided that skiing up high was not for him, so I got the whole mountain for my self.

Being keen as always I woke up early our first day in camp with the goal of getting as high as possible and then ski back down. I first went for the Messner couloir but turned around because of a sketchy bergschrund (I later found a better way) and turned to the Orient or rather the West Rib. At around 17000 feet I got hit by the altitude and felt like that was enough for the day so I sat down on my backpack, put on all my clothes and turned my attention to the view and my iPod for about two hours. I wanted to profit as much as I could from the thin air and when I started to feel cold I clicked in to my skies and skied down to camp in one go. It was a great feeling to finally do some semi steep turns on higher altitude. 

The next day came with bad weather and the following day hard winds but I still made another try on the Orient. I didn’t really care where I was going as long as I got as high as possible and got some good old workout done. This time I made it within 200 meters from the top cornice but I got so cold by the wind (even though I had down pants and 3 down jackets) that I turned around and enjoyed some pretty good chalky skiing. The weather turned in to a storm the next day and gave me some good rest and then calmed down a bit the day after allowing me to get all the way to the top of the Orient Express and then ski all the way back to camp. 

These where some good calm days where I got to tune in to the mountain and get a feeling for the conditions. Magnus joined up with our British friends Jonathan Griffith and Will Sim and did a couple of fast pushes to 17000 camp as well as the Devils Pass (18500). 

But the weather was not really allowing for summit pushes and no one had sat their foot on the summit since we got to ABC so we started to feel like we wanted to optimize our time, get acclimatized and be closer to where its happening. So we moved up to 17000 camp even though the forecast was not to good. We had met some really nice guys from Iceland: Siggi and Balder and we wanted to help them out realising their big dream of making the summit. So the next day we went up the Rescue gully in three hours with their tent to build a mutual camp at 17000. It was really windy in high camp and we built a fortress around their big Hilleberg tent. While I were building walls Magnus turned down to meet our friends to get some food they had cached before and then came back up for dinner. 

When evening turned to night our friends had yet not arrived and we started to be a bit concerned. It was a raging storm outside our tent and we where half asleep in our sleeping bags. But we felt like we had to do something. Magnus went down the ridge again by him self but turned around because he was to afraid going on to the arête by him self in the hard wind and zero visibility. Then we alarmed the rangers, but they did not want to take any risks in the storm, so we went down the ridge together as far as we dared but turned around when it was starting to feel to crazy. There were nothing we where able to do for our friends so we went back to our sleeping bags hoping they had turned around. However, at 3.30 at night our friends stumbled in to the tent after the biggest adventure in their lives and over 18 hours after they sat out. That was one of the happiest moments of the trip. 

The next day it was still stormy and we all hang out together in the tent eating and drinking and listening to Siggis crazy stories from the past. Then the following morning we woke up to a cold and calm sunny day. We were on!!! 

The Messner couloir and the Orient Express from below

Having a rest on the Orient

Mt Hunter

And Foraker

Skiing the Orient the 2nd attempt

And then the third

Further down

Our friends the volunteers building a shelter for the shit house

¨

Jon and Will coming over for a visit

Magnus on a cold day

Our camp

Magnus making his way up the rescue gully

Magnus coming back with the food

And taking care of me on our rest day in the storm

Coming back home to the north of Sweden after our Alaska adventure it’s hard to know where to start my story. I guess it began a year or two back when I got to hear about the south face of Denali for the first time. I got to see photos of the face and the first thing that came to my mind were that; “I can do that, I want to ski that” and I immediately started dreaming about going there.

It felt like a good challenge and a great adventure and I put it on my invisible wish list. But as time went on and easier fetch able adventures came and went, this dream kind of fell asleep. However this winter, over a couple of beers, it got brought up one evening at good friend Max Turgeon’s house.  He had been to Denali several times before and even climbed the huge south face by a new route. He was also looking for a good adventure and almost immediately agreed to go for the south face. 

Said and done. It didn’t take long before we had everything booked and ready to go. But about 3-4 weeks before we where leaving I got a phone call from his girlfriend giving me the bad news. Max was sick, really sick. He had some growth in his stomach, he had just had a surgery and they where waiting for the lab results if he had cancer or not. In a moment I lost all my motivation for the mountains and just put all my hope and well wishes towards Max and his recovery. 

During this time I went out skiing and ice climbing solo, knowing that’s usually what Max does when he’s in the same situation. But then, a week later, we got the results: Max did not have cancer and his prognosis for recovery was really good. The first thing that came to my mind was that I had to try to realise this dream, the big thing I had had in mind most of the winter. So I started calling my best friends to see if anyone was interested in joying me. One of the first I called was Magnus Kastengren. He is one of these rare persons that I know that are almost always free to take on any kind of adventure, and when you are out there, he does have neither negativity nor limits making him a wonderful friend and traveling partner. He is of course also really strong in the mountains. My objective was still skiing the south face, but our mutual goal now also became climbing one of the most famous alpine route – the Cassin Ridge.  

So, less than three weeks before leaving Magnus joins the expedition and we start replanning the trip. There were just a few obstacles to overcome. First of all, someone going to Denali for the first time need to apply for a permit 60 days before the trip. We only had like 17 days before we where leaving. In the end we where able to ad him as a third member of our expedition, but it still meant we could not start climbing earlier than 30 days after registration. But starting the climbing a week later than planned was better than not going, right? That also meant I had to change my flights so we could stay longer in Alaska.  After this was figured out it felt like we where on our way. Now we just had to sort out the equipment. Max and me had most of it planned, but Max, as he had been there a few times more than me he had most of the stuff we needed as a team. Now, we had to spend lots of our time just prior to the trip to get that sorted between myself and Magnus, and hours everyday where spent on skype. 

But in the end we got everything sorted and after two intense layover days in Chamonix (see link) I flew to Anchorage, Alaska, to meet up with my friend at the airport. The one and only day we had in town before we took of to the wilderness was really intense. We had so much equipment to buy and then of course food for one month on the glacier. And it’s pretty important that one get everything one need while in civilisation because once out on the mountain there is nothing one can do if one is lacking something. 

Shopping food for a month was the most difficult task, as we had no clue of what we where buying. Everything looked so different, it was different bags and measuring, new brands, etc and lots of the food is just so different. If we would have been in Europe it would probably have taken us 1,5 hour to get everything we searched for, but now it took us 7h. We walked around the whole store first without selecting a thing before a salesman came and helped us out. 

After a full day of shopping we went back to the bed and breakfast and packed and repacked for most of the night. The next day we where off for Talkeetna, the last outpost before going to Denali. We stayed there for one night and then, the 9^th of May, we flew in to the Kahiltna glacier and the Denali Base Camp. 

The Base Camp consists of a tent village and an airstrip and it’s where everyone aiming to climb Denali by its normal route, west rip or south face will fly in. It’s a place most people are coming to or going from and very few are actually staying there for more than a few days, even though great skiing and climbing is really easy accessible from here. 

We left as soon as we could with the aim of reaching advanced base camp (ABC) as soon as possible. It took us five days to reach it and it was only on the third day when we had a rest day in 11 000 feet camp that Magnus said; “this is the first time I’m having fun on this trip”.  Then again we had almost 80-90 kg of load divided on our sledges and back packs; Food for a month, full skiing and climbing equipment, clothes and all the camping gear. On the way we also made a detour past the east fork of the Kahiltna glacier to get a view of the south face. The weather was mostly really cold, especially at night and really windy making us pretty prepared for the storms higher up, but we also had a taste off how warm the sun can be when it just chooses to shine! Looking back at our first days out they where a good warm up, easy going acclimatisation as well as a preparation for the fun times to come.  

Arriving late at night we slept the first night at the airport

And then had a huge american breakfast.

and then some shopping

Magnus and the plane

The south face of Denali from the plane

Magnus and his sled

First camp, Denali in the far background

First view of the Cassin Ridge

This stuff is heavy

Magnus above Squirrel hill

Our 11000 camp

First view of the upper slopes of Denali and the 14000 (ABC) camp plateau. Messner couloir in the middle, the Orient on the right.