2 DENALI—A LOVE STORY John Anderson | 2nd Place
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s we ascended from the Kahiltna Glacier, a constant 20 mph wind had been banging away at us for the better of six hours. The day had been a slog. This was day fve of our climb as we moved of the top of the 11,000 foot glacier trying to reach the safety of the upper base camp 2 at fourteen (14,000 feet). The ultimate goal was to summit Mt. Denali (McKinley), North America’s tallest peak. The big mountain tops out at 20,320 feet and was so massive it could create its own weather system. Its land mass is the size of the state of Delaware. The climb was not a technical climb, per se, such as Everest or K-2, where ropes and carabiners and ladders were involved. It was more of an assault, with long sustained days of walking. And because the mountain was so far north, the oxygen levels were extremely low and extremely dangerous the higher we climbed. The slow ascent was designed to allow climbers’ bodies to acclimate to the thin air. Our client group was made up of fve fat cat oil executives from Texas. They were paying $20,000 each for their great life’s adventure of reaching the top of the mountain. Theirs was a world of ego, a world where money equaled power. You could almost see them sitting around their clubs after their adventure, crowing to anyone who would listen. They rubbed me the wrong way from the moment I met them. “Alaska ain’t so tuf. Why, we thought about breakin’ up some of that mountain and usin’ it for ice cubes to pour our bourbon over,” cackled Tilman, their team leader. He was a tall, imposing man with a crooked nose and a crooked personality, whose swagger told everyone HE was in charge. As he bit of the end of one of his Cuban cigars, he surveyed the landscape. “We should be up and down in about seven, eight days. Right, son?” he asked me. “I promised my wife we’d be in Paris by the end of the month.” I didn’t respond. I nodded politely and shook my head as I walked away. A normal climb took between twelve to fourteen days. I was one of three assistant guides. All of us just a whisker under thirty. Alaska at the time was a young state… in many ways, as were we. It had been a state for just over twenty years. The population was young too; the average age was 26. Alaska was just getting its traction as an economic giant. The Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline had just come online, and all that oil money was starting to pump through the economy. We were at an age of self-discovery, searching I guess for some greater meaning to life.
We were at an age of self-discovery, searching I guess for some greater meaning to life.
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