Climbing Denali with RMI Expeditions

[ed note: this is old and unfinished, I'm just finally posting it now as is, on the two-year anniversary of summiting Denali July 5 2013]
On June 18 2013, I flew to Alaska for an expedition to North America's highest peak, 20,320 foot (6,194 meter) Denali (officially Mt. McKinley). In total, we spent 20 days on the mountain, and about 5 minutes at the actual summit. It was filled with challenges, both mental and physical; I lost both my big toenails; it took a while to get over the cough I acquired at 17,000 feet; I am quite psyched to tick this one off of my list.
After great previous trips with RMI Expeditions on Rainier (a summit climb in 2009, and a winter seminar in February), I didn't even consider climbing with anyone else, even though I had never met the guides. The lead guide for my trip was Pete Van Deventer, along with Geoff Schellens and Robby Young. Along with them and six other clients, none of whom I had ever met in person (I connected with the guides and one other climber via Facebook), we had a great trip; we got along pretty well as a team.
I already posted some articles on specific aspects of this climb, starting with the training and gear, also about the weather. I had ideas for several more articles, but I lost momentum on this whole project; I just had too many adventures the following summer, most notably climbing Granite Peak in Montana and a return trip to Mt. Rainier. What follows is the day-to-day of the trip, notes taken during evenings and rest days on the mountain, some fleshed out after returning home.

Solo climb of Montana's Granite Peak

Maybe it doesn't quite count as soloing Granite Peak (Montana's highest at 12,799 feet), since I did do the technical section with two guys from Salt Lake, but I did free solo the ascent and was fully prepared to go it alone. In fact, I was overprepared and was carrying far too much weight on this trip, which (along with the route itself) made for a miserable descent. Frankly, I would not recommend the Froze-to-Death route to anyone. I haven't done it personally, but I know two people who have done the Avalanche Lake route, and it sounds highly preferable. The technical part, which is after those two routes meet, was a lot of fun and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is really comfortable rock climbing. Of course it's not necessary to ascend ropeless, there was a guided group ahead of us roped up, but there really isn't much exposure on the few truly fifth-class pitches.
In short, it was great to knock of highpoint #38 (especially after failing two years ago), and I would definitely rank it as the second most difficult of the state highpoints I've done so far (and I anticipate it remaining so once I'm done), behind Denali.

Road/Climbing Trip 2011: Gannett Peak

On Monday, July 11, I set out from Pinedale, Wyoming on a 4-day trek to Gannett Peak, the highest mountain in the state, which peaks at 13,809 feet above sea level, and is part of the Wind River range. Due mainly to the slog of a 16-mile approach just to get into place for summit day, I think it was physically the hardest thing I've ever done, and I'm quite pleased to be able to say that I was successful, even more so that I did it solo, with no support other than following other parties the whole way. I don't think that summit day was that much harder than Rainier was, but including having to cross Bonney Pass both ways, and sections at are steeper than Rainier, it was at least a little harder. However, thanks to better physical conditioning and better altitude acclimatization (I don't think I was below 5,000 feet elevation in the week before this climb), I felt better than I did when I climbed Rainier two years ago. [Note: day 1 and 2 reports were written those evenings, days 3 and 4 were written after returning home]

Road/Climbing Trip 2011: Granite Peak Attempt

On Sunday, July 3, I set out with guide Kenny and fellow client Pete in an attempt to climb Granite Peak, Montana's highest point. We were the guide service's first trip of the year, and if we had been successful, we would have likely been among the first people to summit this season. Unfortunately we didn't even make it onto Granite Peak proper due largely to Pete's difficulty carrying the heavy load of gear necessary for the climb this time of year. We did, however, reach the summit of 11,755 foot summit of Froze to Death Mountain.