The Road to Denali

I can’t remember the moment I said I’m going to do Denali, but I know it was sometime in the last 5yrs. I summited Kilimanjaro in 2019, my first 7 summit, that is when I started looking at what other peaks I might be able to do, skill and money wise. The game plan was always a Rainier summit and a longer Mt trip to see how more than 8 days on a peak felt. The Rainier summits took a while, and Covid stalled bigger trips, my climbing partner Jen and I finally made it to Aconcagua (my 2nd 7 summit attempt) in Jan of 2023 where it would not stop snowing, perfect Denali training weather, but no summit to be had due to Avy concerns, we did reach 21,000ft and new high point for both of us. We learned a lot going on our own, but most importantly we learned we could travel, sleep in a tent for 13 days and still like each other at the end of the day, commence Denali planning!

1.5yrs seems like a lot of time to plan, but really its not, you have to try and find a team, we originally were hoping for at least a 4 person team (in the end it was just the Jennifer’s), learn new skills, practice new and old skills so you have them dialed in, figure out flights, dates, food and train, so much training. Before you know it, its go time, the massive excel spread sheet, your bible is ready to execute, and by that, I mean be ready for it to fall apart and be put back together while on the mountain.

Our original glacier flight date was June 3rd, that was delayed till June 4th (my Birthday) due to weather, we were lucky to get an early flight out and I got to sit in the front of the plane. Before you know it, you have been dropped off in the middle of wild Alaska on your own with a lot of other people headed where you are also going, but everyone spreads out and moves at different paces and you never feel like there are too many people. As a team of 2 you are carrying more weight than a larger team, you can’t spread out the gear, you can’t take rest days while the others take or pick up a cache, camp chores are not spread out, it becomes a lot more work. You wake up, you eat, you make water (for hours), you move gear up the mountain, you move the whole camp up the mountain, and you do this every day for days, 17 days total for us. In between all these things you make friends, you learn your strengths and weaknesses, you comfort your partner if they are having a bad day, and you wake up every day amazed you are on this mounting taking small steps closer to the summit. Before you know it, you’re at 17k camp with a perfect summit window and you wonder how you got this lucky when other peaks have been so hard, but you can’t think about that for too long, you got to go, and go we went all the way to 20,310ft, Denali’s summit, the highest peak in North America!

I can’t thank my climbing partner Jennifer Valencia enough for joining me on this adventure, my husband who took care of our dogs and life while I was gone, and most importantly, the Colorado Mountain Club for the skills I learned taking classes with them that allowed us to do this on our own. Thank you.