Denali Prep for GIRLS!

Since I climbed Denali last year via the West Buttress, it seems as though I've become the go-to girl for McKinley Q&A, especially for other female climbers. Since many of my friends and friends' friends are finding this information useful, I figured I might as well post some of it for the general public.

Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments, especially if you disagree with anything below. I'm by no means an expert and these are just things I've found to work for myself.

Climb on! :)

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My size, just so you can compare to yours and choose the right-fitting gear:
height: 5'5" weight: 120-125 lbs
chest: 33" waist: 25" hips: 33"
sleeves: 28.5" neck: 13.5"

Outer Layers:
Pants- synthetic down pants w. full zip sides, Mountain Hardwear Chugach pants, men's size S
(I couldn't find it for sale online...I think they were replaced by the Compressor, which looks very similar)
http://www.mountainhardwear.com/Product.aspx?top=1241&prod=2671&cat=1280&viewAll=False

Down Jacket- Mountain Hardwear Absolute Zero parka, men's size S
(I would have taken XS, but they don't make it.)
I'd say 700 fill minimum, 800 is optimal; I tend to get colder faster than the guys.
http://www.mountainhardwear.com/Product.aspx?top=1241&prod=1250&cat=1279&viewAll=False
My bf has a Feathered Friends parka, which is a great brand.

Shell- EMS full suit, men's size S
Pros: great for keeping the cold wind and snow out
Cons: when it got hot, hanging the top half of the suit around my waist was annoying. (I only had to do that on 2 days though...the rest were windy/cold)

Arc'teryx bib pants and jacket are awesome and a more versatile combo:
Alpha SV jacket, women's SM:
http://arcteryx.com/product.aspx?Alpha-SV-Jacket-W
Alpha SV bib, women's SM:
http://arcteryx.com/product.aspx?Alpha-SV-Bib-W
Remember, if you buy a JACKET, get a BIB. If you buy a PARKA, it's okay to only have PANTS. This is so that when you sit down or bend over, your lower back is still protected from the cold!

Going Potty:
#1- I use a Freshette to pee when not fully layerd:
http://www.rei.com/product/407267?vcat=REI_SEARCH
I got mine on Ebay, new for $12

#2- To poop (or pee w. full layers), it's best to have clothes with full zippers and a crotch zipper. With the suits, I had to unzip the bottom hatch AND side zips to more easily pull down the base layers. If you're at camp, it's faster/easier just to go bare butt!

Load Carrying w. Sled:
Rigging- I didn't practice before going to Denali. We figured out our rig while waiting for the plane in Talkeetna. We attached a cordalette with biners from the bottom of the pack to the sled, simply put. It's attached to the pack NOT YOUR HARNESS!! This is so that if you fall in a crevasse, you can release the weight and climb out. (It's a little complicated and hard to explain in words, but I'm sure you can find an experienced person to help you in person.)

Weight Distribution- What I found best, after trial and error, was to distribute the weight about 50/50 between pack and sled. Bulky, lighter items went in the sled; heavy, compact items in the pack. Make sure your sled is balanced, meaning heavier items on the bottom of the sled and everything lying as flat as possible to prevent it from tipping over.

I had about 100-120lbs to carry. At first, I struggled with the sled because I thought carrying less on my back would be better...that made the sled hard to pull, especially through fresh powder. After trying 50/50, I almost felt like it was like carrying a regular heavy pack.

Staying Warm Before Bed:
Feet: When you get in the tent, take off your wet socks right away. Rub them with baby powder and put on a dry pair of socks, then down booties.

Body: Drink warm fluids and eat LOTS of carbs at dinner. Fluids will keep your blood thinner and flowing more easily (important throughout the day, but people forget that it helps during sleep too). Carbs will keep your body digesting/processing food through the night and ultimately keep you warmer while sleeping.

Recommended Reading:
This guy is freakin' awesome for putting this together!
http://www.climber.org/TripReports/2005/1519.html

Sometimes

Sometimes I get tired of people who take too much energy. I keep giving and giving...unconditionally and receiving nothing in return. Why? Because I don't want anything back. I want to give. I love to give.

Okay, I take that back. I do want something in return. I want the satisfaction of knowing I'm doing something good. I want to know that my sacrifice of time and energy is helping that other person. I don't care about getting anything other than that...and in that case I'll keep giving.

That is, until I see that my sacrifice does nothing...that it is wasted. If you waste my time, I will stop. Why? I would rather give my time and energy to other people in my life that need it, use it, appreciate it. I only have so much for so many people and for one person to take that away from the rest...well, that shouldn't happen.

I care. I try. I give. I'm sorry, but sometimes I just have to know when it should end.

Aconcagua Info

I realized I never really told many friends about my trip to Argentina, so I figured I might as well post this information email I wrote to someone asking for details about my trip. Who knows, someone out there might find this useful as well...

-----Original Message-----
Yes, I climbed Aconcagua with my bf earlier this year -- overall, the trip was great! We organized everything ourselves and it was just the two of us on the trip, although we did end up meeting plenty of people along the way. We also got some info (e.g., mule costs and hotel info) from a mountain guide/friend, Kurt, who had a trip starting a couple days behind us.

We departed Los Angeles on Dec.. 26th, arrived at Plaza Argentina Base Camp for New Year's and arrived back in the US Jan 17th. We didn't really want to go up the mountain and come back the same way and instead did a loop so we could see more of the mountain. The route we took started from the Polish Glacier's Plaza Argentina route. After summiting, we descended via the Normal Route. Here's a copy of our itinerary (changes to the plan made during the trip and notes are in red):

Dec 26: Depart from LAX
Dec 27: Arrive in Mendoza, grab lunch, purchase permits, buy local food(?)
Dec 28: Buy local food(?) take bus to Los Penitentes, prepare mule loads
Dec 29: Meet Kurt, start trek to base camp (camp at Pampa de Lenas) <-- Kurt stayed in Penitentes an extra day (someone caught a cold)
Dec 30: Hike to Piedra Grande
Dec 31: Hike to Plaza Argentina (base camp), sleep at BC
Jan 01: Rest day at BC
Jan 02: Carry to C1, sleep at BC
Jan 03: Move to C1, sleep at C1
Jan 04: Rest day at C1
Jan 05: Carry loads to C2, sleep at C1 <-- bf carried a load while I stayed at C1
Jan 06: Move to C2, sleep at C2 <-- moved to a "camp 1b" at 17k instead of making the big jump to 19k for smoother acclimatization
Jan 07: Rest day at C2 <-- moved to C2
Jan 08: Summit day, sleep at C2 <-- rest day at C2
Jan 09: Extra day <-- could not summit due to 80mph winds (stayed in tent)
Jan 10: Extra day <-- Summit day: wake up 4am, start at 5am
Jan 11: Extra day <-- ahead of schedule by one day...
Jan 12: Carry load or move to Independencia* <-- camped at a place near White Rocks
Jan 13: Descend to Plaza de Mulas
Jan 14: Descend to Puente del Inca
Jan 15: Arrive in Mendoza
Jan 16: Fly home
(With our extra day, which actually fell on Jan 14, we went white water rafting in a town the bus stopped in)

Permits:
From what I can recall, the permit office closed at 4pm. Obtaining the permit took 3 steps: 1) go to the permit office and fill out a permit request and recieve a price slip, 2) take the price slip and obtain a pay for it at the bank in cash (which happened to be closed for siesta, so we had to go to the Post Office to get a receipt instead), and 3) return to the permit office to finish the process....all-in-all took about 3 hours with a lot running around and waiting in lines.

Hotels:
We stayed one night at: Hostel Campo Base I for $7 each -- you can look them up and make reservations very easily over the internet. Our friends stayed at Hotel Nutibara for $40 per night -- it's a nice hotel that is climber-friendly.

Cost:
It's hard to say exactly how much the trip cost, mainly because we like to "rough it" a little. We only stayed in the hostel for one night on the way in and a small hotel for a night on our way out -- strange thing is that the hotel was actually nicer and cheaper than the hostel despite having a private room and shower! With the exchange rate being 1 USD:3 AR pesos, we didn't spend much on-sight. We even went white water rafting for $15 each and a very nice celebratory dinner in Mendoza (steaks, caprese salad, carpaccio, drinks, desserts, etc.) that ended up costing only $17!

Of course, the most expensive part was paying for the flight. We flew from Los Angeles, to Atlanta, Georgia. From ATL to Santiago, Chile and caught a connection to Mendoza, Argentina. Although we flew Delta, we were fortunate enough to have no hiccups with luggage along the way!

Transportation:
The taxi ride from the airport to Mendoza was $15 with tip, if I recall correctly (we liked our cab driver!). We took the Expresso Uspallata bus line from Mendoza to Los Penitentes for about $12. For the way back to Mendoza, we just caught a ride on another bus company that cost even less. Overall, transportation is very cheap and we had no problems with theft.

If you would like to know the exact cost of our flight and amount of on-sight spending, I can get that to you as well. I'm sorry I took so long to respond, but my bf and I have been planning so many trips lately that I forgot how much time had passed since you emailed. If you have any more questions (e.g. water supply, maps, gear list, pictures, etc.), I would be more than happy to get back to you in a more timely manner! :)

My Inner European

Is this really surprising?

Your Inner European is French!

Smart and sophisticated. You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so.

Who's Your Inner European?

Regrets

I feel that regretting a decision or some past action means wishing you could change what you did.

I also believe that everything that happened in the past leads you to where you are right now. If you change something, you wouldn't be exactly who you are, in the situation you are in, or have what you have.

I am happy in this moment, I wouldn't change a thing, I have no regrets.

File Extensions...

My friend directed me to this site...pretty funny since I feel there's some truth to it. This is me:


Which File Extension are You?

Pico de Orizaba

My boyfriend and I just returned from our trip to Mexico. It was absolutlely awesome! We went to climb Pico de Orizaba, a volcano standing at 18,405ft, making it the 3rd highest peak in North America.

Most trip reports stated that it was a good idea to take at least 5 days to do the hike, allowing for proper acclimatization. Well, my bf likes to do things at a quicker pace than what is expected, so we intended to take 5 days for the entire expedition, which included flying days and one day to visit Teotihuacan -- in other words, we were going to climb that volcano about 3 1/2 days.

Day 1:
We took a red eye from LAX to MX City, hopped on 2 buses and made it to Tlachichuca. While there, we scoped out the little town and searched for an outfitter to drive us to the mountain. The people here kind of look at you funny because you're a tourist, but once you say "hola," their faces brighten up and become really friendly. The kids around town are really curious and everyone seems to enjoy trying to help us out with directions and information.

Soon, we found Senior Gerar, one of the guys who drive people from Tlachichuca to the Piedra Grande hut at the base of Orizaba. After at least an hour of bargaining (literally!) with him about giving us a deal, we finally settled on a great one that included a roundtrip ride from his hotel to Hidalgo and a night in his hotel when we return...and we would be leaving for the mountain that same evening! It was really difficult to settle on this bargain because my bf says he doesn't like getting screwed in foreign countries just because we're travellers. (Just for your information, he also does it for the challenge. We get our bargain deals with people, but always give them a big tip at the end of our stay; this actually seems to make our hosts even happier with us than other guests who pay the full price, but don't leave as good a tip. Go figure...works for us in any case!)

As Sr. Gerar readied up his 4WD vehicle, we went into town to buy some supplies and find us some grub. We all had been so excited about tacos, we were ecstatic when we found a woman selling some from a little set-up in the middle of town. Mmmm...street tacos...delicious! I only ate one, but one of our travel buddies went a little crazy buying chips and those fried orange things that you put lime and chili on. A little too much grease, but we couldn't let any of it go to waste, so we stuffed ourselves. Hmm, maybe not the best idea when you're about to go to high altitude...but hey, at the sight of food, can you blame us for completely forgetting that whole cautionary eating thing before climbing a mountain?

Anyway, after a whole day of shuttling from place to place with our heavy packs, we were on our way to the mountain. We couldn't believe we were making such good time as everything seemed to be falling into place so perfectly. Well, perfectly until we started loading the car and the sky started falling on us! A huge storm started rolling in and Sr. Gerar hurried us up because he wanted to make sure we would make it to the drop-off point before the roads got too soggy.

...To be continued...

Fun with the Folks

Wow, it's been a busy month! The semester just started and I go to class about twice a month, all day on Friday and Saturday. Since it's so far from where I live, especially with traffic, I stay over at my parents' place Friday night. It's a bit strange to stay there because of how much my sleeping habits have changed. I used to stay up all night doing nothing, but now sleep has become so valuable to me. I usually go to bed by about 11pm and get up around 6am, giving me nearly 7 hrs of sleep every night. Now, when I visit my parents I get soooo tired because I stay up to talk for hours, finally getting to sleep at about 2am...even though they're still wide awake!! It's kind of fun to say, "All right kids, it's time for me to go to bed. Don't stay up too late now..."