The two extreme alpinists Stephan Keck and Günter Burgsteiner embarked on a very special (goal) tour at the end of winter 2009: The ascent of the 6,194 m high Mount McKinley (called Denali in Alaska).
But that wasn't enough for the two of them: after successfully crossing the mountain, they skied down the other side and then hiked over 80 km on foot through the Alaskan tundra back to civilization. The two mountaineers survived a six-day snowstorm in their snow cave on the highest mountain in North America...
03/05/04/09 Talkeetna
We sit in our cottage and prepare ham and eggs, American food the first: you put the bacon in the pan, lay it out on the bottom of the pan, let it all sizzle and finally there's a third of the bacon left, the rest sizzled away as fat. Three eggs on top and some really hard bread... Now I'm lying in the car because we can't sit in the cottage because of all the fog and smell. Then finally the descent to the air cab, check if the skis are there, then pack, reload and off to base camp.
The sun is shining, only a few clouds are already here. Everything went well today. We're warm, we're lying in the tent, Günter stinks, but that doesn't matter. At 12:30 we took off in the small plane. We reached the base camp at 2286 m after about half an hour's flight and then quickly set up the campsite. The base camp is not yet full, there are around 50 to 60 people there. If the weather holds, we'll continue tomorrow to Camp I. The faster we get to the top, the better the chances of using a bad weather phase for acclimatization.
Finding the route was easy at the beginning and we found a perfect line, which saved us 3 km. The weather was fine at the beginning, but a little later our shortcut would no longer have worked as it had become cloudy. The last few meters to Camp I we couldn't see anything except the trail we were following. Despite our leisurely pace, we overtook all the people who were climbing with us, as everyone except us was pulling a sledge. When we arrived at the camp, we used an existing campsite. We dug a hole in the snow on the ground so that the cold could sink in.
06.05.09 Camp II - 3234 m
We have reached Camp II. With good weather and no wind, we climbed up to Camp II in the morning in just our underwear and normal running pants and reached it after four hours. At the moment, Günter is not feeling quite so well, perhaps he couldn't stomach the soup. The sun is still shining into the tent, no wind, bright blue sky. Our plan for tomorrow: Ascent Camp 3, through the Windy Corner, about 1000 vertical meters.
07.05.09 Camp III - 4420 m
Just before Windy Corner, we comfortably cooked a can of fish for lunch. We didn't crawl out of bed until 11 o'clock, which is a pretty good joke as we crawled out of our totally iced sleeping bag and then climbed up at a leisurely pace. It's a little steeper at the start, so we swapped our skis for crampons. Shortly before Windy Corner, we switched back to skis. The ascent was quite pleasant. We reached Camp III at 5 pm in beautiful sunshine.
When we arrived, we had a very sad reception: a dead climber, 61 years old, heart attack (according to the rangers, he was beyond help). We walk past and try to ignore this tragedy.
I lie in the tent and freeze my butt off. The weather forecast for the next two or three days is still good. If things go reasonably well for us tomorrow, we'll head up towards Camp IV.
08.05.-14.05.09 Camp III - 4420 m
The weather is not outstanding and has now deteriorated for the first time since we've been on the trail. We made a mistake on the ascent by starting in a down suit: After 150 meters in altitude, we were pretty run down due to heat accumulation. We arrived at camp III. There is a permanently occupied ranger tent here. We have parked our tent a little way away from it and will take a rest day. It's supposed to be very windy at the top, which means 30-60 km/h, and at minus 20°C it's freezing cold.
We leave our first Camp III and set up our new Camp III about 150 m higher up. It looks like we'll have to spend the next few days here. According to the weather forecast, we have a high altitude storm warning tomorrow, which means winds of over 150 km/h, and even at Camp III we could be hit by 70-80 km/h. We've tidied everything up, laid the skis flat and stowed them away, and put everything else in a storm-proof position. We hope the weather will improve - we have fuel, gas and food for five days. And if it doesn't, we'll have to borrow, buy or steal something somewhere.
