Hear Bill's Call from Denali

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Personally, this being my second trip this season, I've certainly gotten a good look at the West Buttress route. And the more time I spend on it, the more I appreciate the aesthetic line. It's a beautiful serpentine route up the mountain. And, with such a beauty, that it almost kind of bothers me when I hear other climbers referring to it as 'the west butt' or 'going up the butt.' That just seems like an insult to a beautiful line on the great mountain of North America—and I'm sure one of the great mountains of the world.

It's definitely a crossroads of the world's mountaineers. It's amazing the amount of international climbers we run into day to day. And also, for me personally, kind of a crossroads of polar regions. I've worked the last seven seasons in Antarctica for other AAI programs and on this trip I have run into three or four fellow travelers down there: Vern Tejas, we've worked together in the past; Joe [unintelligible], a ranger at 14 who's been there; and another guide at high camp here. And this is a very neat place. It's definitely less than six degrees of separation. I'd say that is one of the pleasures, beyond just the physical beauty, is the people you meet, admittedly it's kind of a caravan route, the people you meet, but the scale of things is so immense that even though there may be, you know, hundreds of other climbers on the mountain at a given time you are just dwarfed. Literally on the lower Kahiltna you look miles ahead and see some black dots and know that's another expedition heading up the route [transmission fails]...

This is Bill continuing on a kind of reflective mode. It is just so gorgeous out tonight. I'm just literally sitting here with my gloves off looking down at the fixed ropes. There's a layer of mist just going over the saddle at 16.2 and an ocean of clouds...Foraker is just barely poking out. Tonight Base Camp Annie told us that the landing strip at the Kahiltna Glacier has been moved further up the glacier to extend the season. And really it's just so gorgeous right now.

I had the pleasure of taking a scenic flight between the two guided trips with Talkeetna Air Taxi, which gave me an amazing perspective on the mountain and particularly the West Buttress route. And I think just being right on it—I definitely didn't have a sense of the verticality. Flying over Denali Pass, or Kahiltna Pass, rather, and looking at Motorcycle Hill and up the Polo Field toward Windy Corner, it gave me the true perspective, of the variable, narrow ramp and the scale of the mountains, with thousands of feet dropping down to the Peters Glacier. And for me that was a great experience just getting the overview of the route. But getting to be on it, on the ground, one footstep at a time is, for me, truly the experience.

I feel like the mountain literally imposes itself on me and changes in all of us. Over the period of weeks, it changes our physiology. As we get higher, it's doing chemistry changes to our bodies so that we can survive up here. It kind of dictates our pace. It dictates when we can move with the weather—literally generates storm weather. This massive feature commands thousands of square miles of the interior of Alaska. And these moments when it is balmy and sunny it's just such a pleasure to be here. And I suppose that's probably going to be about it for tonight. And we'll definitely update tomorrow as to whether we have a go at the summit.

When we were coming up from 16.2, three days ago, we passed Vern Tejas, Tom and their group. And they definitely had that glow of having summited, were pretty excited and heading down the mountain feeling very good. And obviously this is an endeavor that just reaching the summit isn't, it isn't an either/or thing as far as the experience. Getting, you know, as far as you can get dictated by conditions. And you know, on the mountain weather helps the group. It's something that I think sticks with everybody for a long, long time. And of course we want to get to the summit. It's looking pretty good and people are feeling good. So, we'll just stay in touch. Thanks.

— Alpine Ascents Guide Bill McCormick, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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