The phone call had come out of the blue. I was enjoying the good life in Aspen, Colorado and about to launch into a masonry business when Neil rang. We had recently climbed a "fourteener" (one of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks) in preparation for his long awaited trip to Denali. With two weeks to go, Neil was suffering a condition normally encountered on the mountain; cold feet. He had signed up for a guided trip and parted with nearly four thousand non-refundable U.S. dollars. There was to be one guide and three clients and Neil felt (not unreasonably) that in the worst case scenario of the guide being injured or killed, his backside was as good as dead. He did not want to see the money wasted completely and was looking for a substitute. I was big on mountaineering ambition but short on experience. I said yes in a heartbeat.

By all measures except for extreme altitude, Denali is one of the great mountains of the world. North America's tallest peak is formally known as Mount McKinley but the more politically correct name of Denali (meaning "The high one") is now widely used. It lies just outside the Arctic Circle and from base camp at 7000 feet it rises to a height of 20,300 feet, a gain of nearly 14,000 feet (greater than Everest). Two weeks was not enough time to prepare but after a few token workouts and a trip to the outdoor store for some specifically warm equipment, I was on the plane for Anchorage.

A climbing trip in the Alaska Range begins in the sleepy town of Talkeetna, fours drive north of Anchorage. If your expectations of Alaska were based on Northern Exposure, then Talkeetna would fit the bill perfectly. The shops are old log cabins, moose can be seen around town and most of the men have beards. We met our guide, Bob, and retired to the Fairview hotel to talk tactics.

To my surprise, the route we would climb had not been finalized. We three clients had thought we would be attempting the South Buttress but Bob was favoring the West Rib. Both climbs are similar in nature; long and committing with short sections of technical climbing. The South Buttress seemed slightly harder and offered a more remote and authentic mountaineering experience. The clients were unanimous; we wanted the South Buttress. Bob eyed us suspiciously and left the decision hanging. We immediately conspired to give such a good impression during our three days of crevasse rescue drills, jumaring practice, and general team bonding, he would be unable to say no to us.

Bob had understandable reservations. It was five years since he had been on the route and would be guiding without an assistant for the first time. The South Buttress was also where an Alaskan climbing legend had been killed while guiding clients in 1993. The night before our scheduled glacier flight he asked again which route we wanted. When he heard our instant response he gave a nervous and slightly manic laugh. "The South Buttress it is."

Our flight onto the glacier was something we were all excited about. We were in the hands of Doug Geeting; a veteran bush pilot and an old hand at the Talkeetna to Base Camp run. The flight was dependent on the weather and during a rainy morning a large backlog of climbers had accumulated at the strip. Planes were returning to Talkeetna and dumping their climbers out (some looking very green about the gills) without having touched the snow. I was surprised then to hear our names called, summoning us to the tarmac. Apparently Doug had enough experience and local knowledge to make the trip that had been deemed too dangerous by the other pilots.

It was a bumpy forty-minute flight that took us from sea level into the heart of the Alaska Range. For the first timers, it was a white knuckle ride, but was no big deal for Doug who, despite the poor visibility, calmly guided our tiny craft over one shot pass and out of the clouds onto the Kahiltna Glacier. I emerged from the plane and tried to adjust to my new environment. Gone was the friendly warmth of summer time Talkeetna. Our world was now one of snow, rock and ice. Rugged peaks surrounded the base camp. Mount Foraker sat proudly three miles across the glacier. Mount Hunter with its impossibly steep northwest buttress towered 7000 feet directly above the landing strip. I was awestruck.

The High One sits eight miles up the Kahiltna glacier, and after burying some goodies for our return, we set off down the trail leading to the West Buttress disparagingly referred to as the highway. The West Buttress is the easiest and by far the most popular route up Denali. It is still a tough assignment and the recent bad weather had made life hard for those on the mountain. All morning we passed climbers returning to camp with long faces and we were happy to be leaving the main trail to head up the east fork of the Kahiltna, ready to do our own thing.

We established a rhythm of moving camps up the glacier. The cramped tent was the perfect place to get to know one's teammates. My compatriots were Geoff, a hulking canoe paddler from Hawaii and Steve, a waiter who spent winters in Colorado and summers in California. At first it was smiles all round. We were making steady progress and there was good rapport between us. Steve was a natural comedian and had christened us team jello after we had accidentally made a mountain of our own of strawberry jelly.

Bob, a two time Everest summiteer, had a wealth of climbing experience and at the end of the day, would engage us with tales from the Karakoram, Nepalese Himalayas and the Alaska Range. On the hill however, a difficult personality had begun to emerge. It seemed he was trying to make us feel like the bumbling imbeciles we were trying our hardest not to be, just to fuel his own ego. I had opened my mouth prematurely once or twice and was coming in for some special treatment. I am stubborn by nature and we started locking horns.

Six days of glacier travel had us at the base of the Japanese ramp and the start of the route proper. Between the ramp and us however, lay a daunting icefall. Bob seemed to think that the way ahead was straight through the middle and we tried beating a path through the chaotic jumble of seracs and crevasses. After two days of fruitless effort, he called for a rest saying he felt jaded. For two more days we sat watching the less than scintillating spectacle of glacial movement. The obvious route to the ramp was to the left of the icefall but passed beneath a row of large seracs (the ice cliff at the toe of the glacier, which will inevitably fall) that hung ominously above. With the seracs poised to come crashing down sometime in the next minute or the next millennium, Bob was unwilling to tempt fate. Talk turned to alternative routes on smaller peaks; a prospect the paying members of team jello were less than thrilled about. Suddenly Bob came to us with the idea of climbing at night and we instantly agreed.

As we were in Alaska for the summer solstice, climbing at night didn't mean climbing in the dark. You are treated to a five-hour sunset and by the time it is over, dawn's rays are already beaming. Temperatures drop considerably so during the nighttime freeze, we moved gingerly but quickly under the seracs to the relative safety of the ramp.

The sudden progress buoyed our spirits and summit fever started creeping in. Our camp at 13,000 feet was directly opposite Denali's massive southwest face with its two hanging glaciers, big and little Bertha, and flanked by the Cassin Ridge. This was what we had come for. We were perched in this colossal arena; the scene of epic first ascents by mountaineering heroes such as Doug Scott and Dougal Haston. Through the clear thin air, the summit looked within reach and the three wannabes were inspired.

We moved camp up to 15,000 feet and then across the top of the buttress to 16,000 feet. This was where the camping started getting weird. The tent was pitched on a level platform at the base of a crevasse, which could be compared to living in an industrial size freezer. Our food was rock hard and there was a thick layer of hoarfrost over everything each morning. A spilt drink is no problem. Within fifteen minutes, a steaming brew, clumsily knocked over becomes one solid lump and is easily thrown out the door.

Relations with Bob were also getting weird. He was convinced my asthmatic cough was a contagious flu and he tried insisting I wear a mask in the tent. His tone on the hill was generally sarcastic and condescending and there was by now a noticeable tension within the group.

Due to our lost time in the icefall, we were forced to make our summit bid from the camp at 16,000 feet which was always going to be tough. We were ready for an epic but after fourteen hours of climbing, Bob turned us around at 19,000 feet, below the long summit ridge. My teammates were pretty gutted but the decision was probably a wise one.

The final straw between Bob and I came on the way down. We were all roped together and passing through awkward mixed ground. Bob must have convinced himself that I was deliberately slowing him down by dragging on the rope. After a rest break, he stormed ahead trying to pull me off my feet. All civilities were over with.

It is an amazing experience coming back from such a cold, lifeless place. A small bird that came to our final camp was the first living creature we had seen in twenty-three days and was truly a beautiful sight. It had been a pretty intense time, but at the end of it all, I had certainly learned a thing or two about mountaineering. I had future trips in mind and was not too disappointed at not having topped out. Geoff and Steve had invested some big bucks on the mission and were unimpressed with our guide's performance. No doubt there were stressful times for Bob but it is hard to maintain any team spirit when you are made to feel one foot tall every time you make a mistake. There is a long slope to climb that leads back up to base camp. It's a final sting in the tail known as heartbreak hill and for the first time I was leading with only Bob on the rope behind me. I tried to have the last laugh by plowing up the hill as fast as my lungs and legs would carry me. The stubborn bastard kept up all the way.

—Andrew Lygo, Living the Life with MountainZone.com