Doing Denali Light

[Benjamin Smith]

Companion forum thread to:

Doing Denali Light

Podcast: Doing Denali Light Part 1

Podcast: Doing Denali Light Part 2

[Jonathan Ryan]

Great podcast today guys. I am always looking for ways to lighten my winter kit so any kind of insight is always appreciated. Any chance on posting the gearlist for this trip?

[Carol Crooker]

We may be able to get a gear list post-trip.

[Brett .]

Any word on how the trip is going?

edit: Thank you Carol

[Carol Crooker]

No word yet from Matt and Agnes. They planned to check in some time between May 26-29.

[Carol Crooker]

Matt left me a message on May 31 from Camp Four at 14K feet, located just below the Headwall. He sounded great! We weren't able to connect for an interview. Camp Four is traditionally a place to rest for a few days to acclimatize and then head to High Camp.

[Ryan Jordan]

Matt left us an email yesterday with a brief update:

"We just flew off the Kahiltna this morning ending our 14-day Denali trip. Ags and I had a great time on the West Buttress this season. We got to weather out some serious storms with interesting people, put some gear through the ringer and push our limits both physically and mentally. Our project was the talk of camp up there in May. We set-up our 8×10 siltarp in what we called front-porch mode at 14, 300 ft camp. Everyone stopped by for tea on the porch. We did sorely underestimate the need for a full sized shovel on that mountain. Digging out camp with the snow claws was quite a process. But a full trip report it to come shortly.

Sorry that we couldn't connect on the route. Our two weeks was plagued by severe storm systems that wreaked havoc on cell phones and sat phone connections. I did manage to get a call through on a sat phone during one of the calmer days. We spent a full week at camp 3 (14,300 ft) trying to gain passage to the upper mountain. But high winds, no visibility and very low temps (the trifecta) beat us down on three attempts. We finally ran out of time on Sat and headed down with a lenticular still on the summit and a forecast that a 'real' storm system was due on Monday. That was very hard on the psyche, especially since we were cruising up the mountain for the whole first week. A great intro to big mountains for Agnes."

[Henry Liu]

Bummer it didn't work out. Can we get the gear list? I'm interested how they travelled so light.

[Carol Crooker]

Matt and Agnes will be submitting a trip report including gear list and photos. Matt will also do a wrap up podcast with me.

[Robert Mohid]

I'd be very interested to know what systems they found were too light or not up to snuff for a real mountain.

I'd like to avoid any mistakes.

[Carol Crooker]

Hi Robert,
That is on my list of questions for the podcast.

[Henry Liu]

Any idea when the interview is taking place?

[Carol Crooker]

I interviewed Matt and Agnes post trip on Friday night. We'll hopefully have it ready to publish this Tuesday.

[Henry Liu]

Awesome. Looking forward to it. I feel a shopping spree coming on when the gear list comes out :)

[Robert Mohid]

Great podcast, thanks Carol.

Would it be possible to get a full, skin out, gear list from Matt?

I'm especially interested in his food choices and the little luxuries he brought for camp life.

[Carol Crooker]

Matt is submitting a gear list and trip report for publishing.

[Robert Mohid]

Ahhh… the perils of the post-expedition follow-up :)

[Robert Mohid]

*cough*

[Henry Liu]

Any ETA on the gear list? Thanks.

[Kathy Bartosh]

C'est la vie.

You live and learn from these attempts and hopefully the next attempt will be successful.

[John S.]

I'm beginning to think you won't see a gearlist. Why use the 5 letters ULTRA (as in ultralight) anywhere in a report mentioning a Denali summit when we all know that nobody can do that with less than 12 pounds base weight? The three to five pound sled immediately makes that an impossibility.

[Carol Crooker]

Hi John,
Matt and Agnes submitted a gear list yesterday. They are working on the trip report. Baseweight in their packs was about 21 lbs. More was carried on their sleds of course.

[Benjamin Smith]

Hi John,

I think that this article demonstrates the necessary flexibility of all types of lite, from ultra to uber. As some posters (Vick Hines, Michael Wands) have pointed out, in south Texas (my neck of the woods) sub-5 is NOT SUL. You can walk out your door with a poncho and a water bottle and be just fine – if you even think you'll need the poncho – through three seasons. By the same token, if you dare wade back through this thread, you'll find a similar discussion – is SUL actually sub-6 if it's winter? Taken to the extreme, and a baseweight that is double the typical UL load might still make the UL "cut" in conditions as extreme as Denali's.

Maybe our criteria is percentage of a standard load? I don't know how you determine the "standard" load, but that's one way to approach it, or at least think about it.

And yes, Matt and Agnes' gearlist will be up soon!

Your thoughts?

[Jon Rhoderick]

Sorry to be an giddy impatient child … I mean respected member, but is it coming on this week?
Jon

[Robert Mohid]

Are we there yet ?

…

…

how about now ?

[Author]

Posts