Winter Climbs

12 January 2012
5:33 PM

Sunrise at	10:35 AM	in direction	147°	South-southeast
Sunset at	3:24 PM	in direction	213°	South-southwest

Duration of day: 4 hours, 49 minutes (5 minutes, 22 seconds longer than yesterday)

One of the most wonderful features of Alaska are its mountain ranges.

For the region of Cook Inlet near Anchorage and all the way to Fairbanks in the Interior, one geographical feature predominates.  Denali, or Mt. McKinley as many know it, is the tallest peak in North America. When the sky is clear of the usual clouds surrounding the mountain, it can be seen from points south of Anchorage and points in the Interior to the North.  It is difficult to describe its impact but what must be clarified is that unlike Everest, Denali is the only peak of note in view.  If I look south from Fairbanks, I see the line of the Alaska Range.  The peaks of Mt. Hayes, Mt, Deborah, and Mt. Hess, rise to view ranging between 11,940 feet and 13, 832 feet to the south east.  Then as I follow the line of peaks to the west, I see rising above the foothills and lower peaks of the Alaska Range this huge, huge mountain - Denali.

In Colorado there is the Fourteener Club.  Folks make a goal of climbing to the top of each of the state's peaks over 14000 feet.  Those attempts start well above a mile high, often from a parking spot no lower than 10000 feet.  During the summer, they can be climbed without encountering snow.  Some peaks in our part of the world rise above 14000 feet less than 100 miles from the sea.  And at this latitude, they are always capped in snow.  In terms of prominence, base to summit, they are taller than those of Colorado.  Denali takes the prize for this huge difference. The Base to Summit distance of Denali is 18000 feet.  The peak itself is listed at 20, 320 feet.

View from the South on the Parks Highway

To provide some perspective to the photo above, the location where this photo was taken is over 100 miles from the base of the mountain.  The view and photo are well known.  I grabbed this one from the Wikipedia article on Mt McKinley which has some very nice rotating elevation images:  Mount McKinley - Wikipedia.

The photo below ( Megaspace Flickr Stream) makes use of zoom and some artistic finishing, but it captures the peak's prominence from the Interior.

Heart Stopping View from the North

Whenever you read about climbers scaling Everest, the focus is the temperatures at the top, of course, and the intense lack of oxygen.  Those who climb Denali face that as well, but due to the northern latitude of Denali, some consider it a far more dangerous ascent with respect to weather and temperature.

What brought this to mind is my son, Lorien, recorded interviews of two winter climb attempts, one of Denali and the other of Mt. Hunter.  He lives in Talkeetna and is News Director for the public radio station there, KTNA - Talkeetna Public Radio.  The Talkeetna Ranger Station coordinates and monitors climbers for the Denali Ascent within the U.S. National Park.  Flights to the base camp are scheduled from there.  You can find his article written, with sound clips from the climbers at this link:  Alone in the mountains - Masatoshi Kuriaki still chasing solo ascent of Hunter .