SummitPost.org

Hi folks,

Does anybody know how I can get the past weather data for Denali (for the heights of 17,000-21,000 feet). There is a good resource for current weather - http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/ ... casts/6194 - but it doesn't have records of past weather. I tried to do Web Archive but was able to retrieve data only for June 7th, 2011 - http://web.archive.org/web/201106072042 ... casts/6194. I specifically need the data for May 31, 2011... I found the historical data for the years 2000-2007 when the temperature ranged between -15F and -25F which is not the precision I need.

This would help me plan my future expedition by benchmarking the effectiveness of heat-insulation of the equipment that I used on Denali during that period...

Thanks,
Nick

Sanders,
You ask a really interesting question.
My web searches only brought up the Mt. McKinley weather station site/data, but it looks like the station discontinued/went down a few years ago. http://www.iarc.uaf.edu/mt_mckinley/
I'm guessing that's were you got the datasets you mentioned?

FWIW, my summit day was May 30, 2011. The weather was "nice" so we didn't bother recording temperatures on the way up/down.

You might try emailing the NPS rangers at Talkeenta. I'm guessing the NPS climbing rangers keep daily recorded temps at 14 Camp and (perhaps) the temps above 17 Camp can be inferred/estimated.

http://www.nps.gov/dena/planyourvisit/t ... ranger.htm

Perhaps some of the guide services keep records of ascent temperatures? Though I'm guessing this might be long shot. Perhaps the flightseeing companies (K2,TAT, etc) might have recorded temp data for that day/elevation?

Good luck!

Thanks for your answer! That's right, I have got the historical data data from IARC portal.

I started feeling my toes only 2 hours after starting climbing from 17K Camp around 7:30am/8:00am. I had the Forty Below Purple Haze overboots on Asolo AFS 8000. That numbness lasted a lit bit longer than what I had experienced in the same shoes without overboots on a past climb between 20K-22K feet. That's why I am so curious about how cold it was that morning between 17K-19K feet... Besides that, a short removal of mittens above 18K and being just in gloves led to an immediate loss of sensitivity in fingers, regained only 3-5 minutes after putting on the mittens.

I doubt it will be easy to reach out rangers or K2/TAT on that question. What would be very helpful is learning about the source of this data - http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/ ... sts/6194... They seem to have a perfect pool of data to slice and dice but do not show the past postings...