We did three routes + 7 hour round trip (W Ridge) to the summit of Denali from ABC

photo by Marko Prezelj

First we climbed a new route on the "Mini Moonflower" which is located about .3 miles up glacier from the Moonflower Buttress on the North Buttress of Mount Hunter. We called it "Luna" and it was about 650 meters with difficulties up to M7/WI7.
In the route most of the climbing is in steep mixed ground and ice in upper part main problem was steep soft snow and cornices. We completed it in 23 hours round trip from Base Camp.

Next we climbed the "Moonflower Buttress" on North face of Mount Hunter. We on sight freed it (the first free ascent) to the Cornice Bivie in 25 hours. It took another 11 hours to rappel the route. Stephen led the Vision and it went free at about M7. Marko led the Prow and didn't want to rate it. We had to climb the tricky traverse from ice to rock and back to ice again - mix of rock climbing and dry-tooling. It was more balance than pure physically difficult.
Our original plan was to climb to the third ice field and brew up there in the sun and take a rest. When we got there after 18 hours of climbing it was windy, so we chopped a place to get out of the wind and to cook out of the wind. Stephen set up the stove and was horrified to see fuel leaking out of the pump and was unable to fix it. We were both hungry and really thirsty (having had 5 liters of water between us thus far. We decided to keep going. After 25 hours we reached the Cornice Bivie on top of the Buttress. We briefly thought about pushing to the true summit of Mt. Hunter but thought it would be unwise with no water and no fuel. Eating snow and ice was how we had gotten that far. Like most of the parties (including the first) we finished the route there and we began rappelling at about 9 pm and rapped all night. We got down back to camp at around 6 AM.

After the "Moonflower" we rested for about 4 days before heading up to ABC on Denali to acclimate for an attempt on a new line just left of the "Cassin" and right of the "Denali Diamond" on the SW Face. The 8,000 + foot SW Face hadn't been climbed in over 18 years. We did not stick to standard recipes for climbing in Alaska. We tried to take advantage of light by all means. It was warmer (and lighter) to rest during the day when (and if) the sun was on the sky. We got acclimated up high on the mountain - Marko made seven hour round trip from ABC (14,000 Feet) over the summit and Stephen went to 19,000 Feet from the ABC.

After that we rested and waited for the weather and conditions to be just right. We would take the bare minimum of gear...belay jackets and bivie sacks, stove with 22 oz's of fuel, one real meal and lots of GU. We would climb on a single 9.6 mm cord with a 5.5 mm Dynema cord for hauling the rucksack of first climber on steep sections.
We left 14K camp at 7 AM and headed over the West Rib at about 15,500 Feet and down the Wickwire route. This involved some pretty hairy crevasse crossings and sprinting under the big SW Face Seracs but was quick. We started climbing at about Noon.
After climbing over the bergschrund 4 easy ice pitches brought us to the start and as it turned out, crux of the route, an overhanging ice section coming out of a big roof. Marko was leading this pitch. Stephen would venture to say it was M8. Many more long mixed pitches wound their way up the only weakness in the wall with superb granite all around. We were on the go for 26 hours before finally stopping to brew up after most of the technical difficulties had been overcome. For 7 hours we brewed and dried our gear, which had been soaked by a near waterfall on another very difficult pitch. The route had gone all free and on sight to this point. We began climbing again after about seven hours of rest at 4 PM only to have our crampons fill with obscene amounts of snow with every knee deep step we took. We wandered up through easier terrain toward some of the last difficulties of the route. We belayed another 5 long pitches which brought us to the top of the wall where we met the Cassin Ridge after all the technical difficulties. We went to brew up again only to find that the fuel had leaked out due the lack of additional pressure of higher altitude. So we continued in cold up the upper Cassin all night and summitted at 7 AM, 48 Hours after leaving ABC. Another three hours brought us safely back to ABC at 14,000' - 51 hours intense round trip.
We named the route Light Traveller - we had light packs and we used the 24-hour daylight for the single push climbing.

The upper Cassin was one of the most exausting "climbing" either of us had done in the mountains. We wanted to go to asleep every time our legs stopped moving up the breakable crust and knee deep snow. We pushed on.

This was very intense and successful climbing trip. We were lucky to finish all our climbs in good weather conditions and that we rested when the weather was not so good. We really made the most out of days with good weather. And it was nice to share good mood with some other climbers there. It is exciting to imagine what the future can bring...

Chronology: