Unguided Denali (West Buttress) Trip Reports w/ Gear Lists?

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ExcitableBoy

 
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Re: Unguided Denali (West Buttress) Trip Reports w/ Gear Lis

by ExcitableBoy » Mon Mar 16, 2015 11:11 pm

Chris Simpson wrote:I wonder what kind of shape the teams House led were in?

What kind of physical shape do you think it takes to climb Denali in 8 days?


I have a climbing partner who climbed it in 8 days, but he also climbed Cho Oyo with Steve House and Scott Johnson. On one trip to AK, we bumped into a French team who climbed Denali in 8 days RT by taking Diamox. They had no bad weather days.

All funning aside, I think if you head up with the mentality of doing it in 8 days or whatever, you are setting yourself up for failure. Go ahead and climb it as quickly as conditions allow, but absolutely listen to your body. Your previous experience on Mexican volcanoes has little bearing on Denali.

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Chris Simpson

 
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Re: Unguided Denali (West Buttress) Trip Reports w/ Gear Lis

by Chris Simpson » Tue Mar 17, 2015 12:19 am

I agree 100 percent with everthing about that statement.

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Re: Unguided Denali (West Buttress) Trip Reports w/ Gear Lis

by brichardsson » Tue Mar 17, 2015 1:10 am

ExcitableBoy wrote:
On one trip to AK, we bumped into a French team who climbed Denali in 8 days RT by taking Diamox. They had no bad weather days.



luckily, he has a diamox connection. so he should be ok.
Don't try to argue with idiots. You aren't the dumbass whisperer.

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Chris Simpson

 
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Re: Unguided Denali (West Buttress) Trip Reports w/ Gear Lis

by Chris Simpson » Tue Mar 17, 2015 3:31 am

B, add ivy bags, dex and the training to go with it :D

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Re: Unguided Denali (West Buttress) Trip Reports w/ Gear Lis

by fatdad » Tue Mar 17, 2015 6:06 pm

I just stumbled upon this thread. Initially, my thought was that this got to be a troll but then I've come to learn that one of the unexpected wonders of the internet is the belief in some people that merely asking for information is a fair substitute for experience, judgment, skill, etc.

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Jesus Malverde

 
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Re: Unguided Denali (West Buttress) Trip Reports w/ Gear Lis

by Jesus Malverde » Wed Mar 18, 2015 7:56 pm

Then again, there's always this..

If your dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough.
- Unknown

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ExcitableBoy

 
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Re: Unguided Denali (West Buttress) Trip Reports w/ Gear Lis

by ExcitableBoy » Wed Mar 18, 2015 8:55 pm

My dreams scare me. They have killer clowns in them.

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Re: Unguided Denali (West Buttress) Trip Reports w/ Gear Lis

by ExcitableBoy » Mon Apr 20, 2015 1:44 pm

Thread with good information about the value of pre acclimatization http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthr ... /1137465/1

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Re: Unguided Denali (West Buttress) Trip Reports w/ Gear Lis

by Chris Simpson » Tue Apr 21, 2015 8:07 pm

Interesting. What do you think? I think it varies from person to person. The train high (meaning I run my local 10,000 ft mountain every weekend) sleep low strategy has always worked for me. A few buddies who just left for Everest incorporated Alpenglow's Hypoxico tents and even had a cycling chamber installed that simulated 23,000 ft. They were sleeping at "18,000" ft, cycling, hiking & strength training every day at sea level and cycling in the chamber a few nights a week. All in all they are hoping to cut off 2.5 weeks off their climb. Very excited to see how they do.

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Re: Unguided Denali (West Buttress) Trip Reports w/ Gear Lis

by ExcitableBoy » Tue Apr 21, 2015 8:46 pm

I climbed Rainier with a guy who was sponsored by Hypoxico. He had climbed Everest and Lhtose (with one bottle of O2) and quite impressively, Aconcagua airport to airport in 60 hours. Clearly the hypobaric gizmo works for him.

My suspicion is when you climbed Orizaba you essentially 'outran' any altitude problems by climbing so fast. No doubt your training at altitude helped, but I don't think it helps as much as you expect it to. Between transit time to Talkeetna and waiting for a weather window to fly onto the glacier, all your acclimatization could go out the window.

From past experience, if you get it in your mind that you are going to climb Denali in X number of days, and weather, acclimatization, etc. turn against you, it can have a debilitating effect on your mental state. But maybe I'm weird that way.

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Re: Unguided Denali (West Buttress) Trip Reports w/ Gear Lis

by Chris Simpson » Tue Apr 21, 2015 9:00 pm

Totally agree. I've read about numerous strategies and outrunning altitude was one of them. Since we are starting so low and with unpredictable weather and because Mexico just can't compare, the thought has crossed my mind more than once. I can tell you this for sure, first headache or any other signs of altitude sickness and my ass is stopping and reverting to slow and steady.

The guy you climbed with.. was that Adrian by any chance?

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Re: Unguided Denali (West Buttress) Trip Reports w/ Gear Lis

by ExcitableBoy » Tue Apr 21, 2015 9:09 pm

Chris Simpson wrote:The guy you climbed with.. was that Adrian by any chance?

No, Brian Ostrike. That was in 2008.

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Re: Unguided Denali (West Buttress) Trip Reports w/ Gear Lis

by Damien Gildea » Wed Apr 22, 2015 1:10 pm

Chris Simpson wrote:A few buddies who just left for Everest incorporated Alpenglow's Hypoxico tents and even had a cycling chamber installed that simulated 23,000 ft. They were sleeping at "18,000" ft, cycling, hiking & strength training every day at sea level and cycling in the chamber a few nights a week. All in all they are hoping to cut off 2.5 weeks off their climb. Very excited to see how they do.


Acclimatising is as much about time, as anything else. Those sessions are better than nothing but I doubt would give lasting acclimatisation. Just not enough time at simulated atitude.

As EB says above with Talkeetna - a couple of minor, but typical, delays and you lose any pre-acc you might have had. Last time I looked no one had been above 6000m on the north side of Everest and no ropes are fixed high. Your friends won't be getting above 7000m for at least a week so, unless my timings are off, I can't see them keeping what little acclimatisation they may have had.

Edit: I just checked and they're flying KTM to Lhasa, which is a bit different. Time in Lhasa and a quicker drive to BC-ABC would be better than driving from Ktm the usual way, but I still think the gap is too long.

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Re: Unguided Denali (West Buttress) Trip Reports w/ Gear Lis

by Chris Simpson » Wed Apr 22, 2015 4:05 pm

You may be right. I believe they had started using the the tent system early December and flew out 4/14. That does seem like a huge gap for any lasting pre-acclimatsation. However, Adrian swears by it and has cut significant time off expeditions. Aconcagua is a good example which totals 13 days and is available to clients.

One of the Everest bound climbers failed in 2006 and summited in 2007. He's a very big guy and and moves VERY slow. Curious to chat with him about any long lasting or significant benefits as he will definitely be the prime example in exposing the pros and cons of the Hypoxico systems. But, again, I really think it depends on the person. As EB stated, it worked for Brian Oestrike and seems to work for Ballinger.

Personally, and I have nothing against the tent system to each his own, I would not use this method unless I was on a huge time crunch. HOWEVER, the chamber IS still in the gym and am really tempted to give it go just for kicks :)

Have not read this yet as it just came out - http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015 ... as-guides/

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Re: Unguided Denali (West Buttress) Trip Reports w/ Gear Lis

by Damien Gildea » Thu Apr 23, 2015 5:31 am

Chris Simpson wrote: Aconcagua is a good example which totals 13 days and is available to clients.


Sure, Aconcagua would work fine, as the logistics are so much quicker, meaning any gap is smaller - and reliably smaller. The weather is better, and you're not relying on Sherpa teams to fix rope for your 'climb'.

Many peaks in India could be done like this too, as there are roads right near multiple 6000m peaks, only hours from airports like Leh or Manali.

With regard to tents and training, there is all sorts of info around on the web. But using them as a training aid to compete in an event lower down (from the artificial 'height'), as some athletes are trying, is slightly different to using them to build up acclimation for a Himalayan peak. You really need to stay in the thing and not go lower, to train or otherwise.

On a historical note, the elite Groupe Militaire de Haute Montagne (GMHM) who are basically super-fit and skilled professional military mountain climbers, experimented with this nearly twenty years ago, on various peaks, but it rarely proved significant, mostly due to the gap I'm referring to - weather, travel, sickness, logistics etc. I also remember reading that they felt that living in the chamber, in the lead up to leaving home, was so unpleasant it basically killed their motivation for the climb. A part of every major expedition is balancing psychological factors with physical parameters.

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