Higher Education

Over 700 students walked across the stage this spring to accept their diplomas. Some of them kept walking all the way to the summit of Denali.

This May, four friends who met in their outdoor field classes at UAA tackled the continent's tallest peak, departing just six days after the school year ended. After months of preparation-and four years of outdoor leadership classes-the team drew on their combined knowledge to overcome some serious climbing calamities on their push to the summit.

The four-man crew included two outdoor leadership majors (Eric Dahl and Peter Dreher), one outdoor leadership minor (Nick Brunger) and a fourth friend (Jacob Brownlee) who majored in environment and society, but peppered his transcripts with outdoors classes like crevasse rescue and backcountry skiing.

Peter first hatched the idea over a year ago, and he convinced Eric to join him with the promise of an epic, unmatchable skiing opportunity. The idea, if you will, snowballed from there.

Peter and Eric decided to pair with another pair and climb as two self-sufficient two-man teams, able to assist each other with any mountaintop mishaps. Thankfully, they didn't have to search too far.

Nick first met Eric and Peter in beginning ice climbing, one of many impressive courses offered by the Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. Later, they all earned avalanche 1 certifications while enrolled in backcountry skiing and, nearing graduation, all three participated in the 20-day 200-mile Brooks Range expedition, arranged by the department as a senior capstone project. After all those epic shared experiences, Nick-a justice major-was game for the hike up Denali. He roped in his friend Jake-who he also met in the outdoors department-and the team was set.

The pairs trained separately, putting in countless hours hauling sleds of gear, honing their rescue skills, packaging food and testing out gear. In April, they did a "Denali Shakedown" trip, traversing from Eklutna to Girdwood over icy mountain passes. It was the first time the four had traveled together, and they left the trip confident in their abilities for the big challenge ahead.

Base Camp

On May 10, the four flew from Talkeetna to the snowy landing strip at 7,200-foot, where the mountain greeted them with intense summer sunshine that blazed over their early days. By Day Three they were at 11,000-foot, sweaty and content in their progress. "I was kind of taken aback at how mellow the lower mountain was," Eric recalled.

But the adventures were about to escalate.

While holed up at 11,000-foot camp, the weather took a rough turn. Bluebird skies belied the intense wind sweeping across the mountain a few hundred feet higher, and the team hunkered down in relative calm. Once camp chores were done-building snow walls to block the wind, cleaning up around camp-the crew got to kick it in the sunshine, reading books, skiing around the area and chatting with other teams from around the world.

More importantly, they got used to the altitude, and all the breathless sluggish headaches that come with it. "If you move too fast and lose your breath, good luck trying to catch it again," Eric said.

From mellow to monstrous

Around this time, the first setbacks struck the trip. On a hike to cache supplies, Jake punched through a crevasse up to his knee. It was far from a close call, but a scary reminder of risk on the mountain.

A second setback struck when Peter was skiing a terrain park built by outdoors students from University of Alaska Southeast. He snapped a ski on a jump, shattering both his gear and the grand plan to ski down Denali.

Leaving 11,000-foot behind, the crew pushed to 14'000-foot and settled in for another long stretch of progress-blocking weather.

"Mentally draining"

All told, the guys would spend ten days at the 14,000-foot camp just waiting for a weather window to shoot to the summit. When they arrived at camp, Eric estimates there were six other tents. "By the time we made a summit push, there was close to 100."

"The most challenging thing for me was the weather," Jake said. "Just waiting out the weather in the same spot for two weeks at 14,000-foot... that was mentally draining."

The winds were too severe to keep plodding along, so they bunkered down and talked to folks on their way home. A Polish team handed off their stash of instant soups. They scored again when a Spanish crew passed along the whereabouts of their abandoned caches farther up the mountain. But still, the wind kept whipping.

"It was more mentally challenging than anything," Nick agreed. "We had prepared really well and we were in excellent shape, but it was more of the mental game. We were sitting in the tent a lot."

A weather window opened on Day 17, but the guys had to pass after to a pretty intense sequence of events.

Avalanche Report

On Day 16-nearly a week after arriving at the 14,000-foot camp-the team decided to hike up part of the mountain to check on the Spanish team's cache. They started the climb along with a skier and a boarder-Bill and James-from Colorado. As the six of them hiked toward the fix lines installed on the mountainside, Eric clipped into a rope with Bill and James to check out the conditions in Rescue Gully and see if they were skiable. The others trudged on to the fixed ropes as a ski-less trio.

"As we approached the fixed line at the top of the glacier, the ice shifted underneath us," Jake recalled.

"It basically felt like an earthquake," Nick added. "It was shaking, we could hear ice falling beneath our feet. It was incredibly freaky.

"Pete had already gotten to the fix lines and he belayed us up really quick," Jake continued. "As soon as I clipped into the fixed lines, we heard a bang."

"We were about level at elevation. They're just to the right of us," Nick said of Eric and the Coloradoans. "We see the avalanche start. Peter starts screaming, 'Keep eyes on them! Keep eyes on them!'"

As third in line, Eric had a moment to react. "I remember watching a wall of snow move towards me and irrationally thinking, I might be better off if I run towards it and jumped over the initial impact. That didn't work," Eric joked.

Swallowed by the avalanche, he started swimming for the surface of the shifting mass of snow, spitting out ice and gasping for air. Every time he clawed to the surface, the rope attaching him to the other climbers sucked him back below.

All told, the slide lasted more than 30 seconds-"For me, it felt like a couple heartbeats," Eric recalled-and the climbers slipped over 1,000 feet down the mountain. Thankfully, the avalanche spit all three to the surface as it slowed. By the time Peter, Nick and Jake made it to them, the others had dug themselves out.

"I felt like a million bucks that day with the adrenaline rush," Eric said. "However, the next day I woke up and felt like I'd been in a car crash."

So as the skies finally cleared and teams poured toward the summit, the four guys stayed behind as Eric rested. Billy and James-one with a busted ankle, both with shaken confidence-packed it in and shuffled back down to base camp. Eric pressed on, humbled and cautious and determined.

After four extra days of rest and preparation, they set off-without skis-for 17,200-foot camp, the last mainstay before the summit. And on day 21, they made it to the roof of the continent.

At 20,327 feet, Denali is no joke. "It was (and still is) surreal," Eric wrote of the experience on his blog. "The views were endless and breathtaking. Calm, clear, with only a slight breeze." After 10 minutes, the crew started their descent. It's a lot of work for a short visit, but at the summit, there's a USGS marker, an epic view and some extremely thin air, which forces folks back to 17,200-foot.

"The high camp is really not a fun place to hang out," Jake noted, citing how your body breaks down at elevation. The same day they summited, they returned all the way to their overly familiar stomping grounds at 14,000-foot. After one final night on the mountain, they continued barreling down to the airstrip. After 21 days up, it took only a day and a half to get back down.

Back at 7,200-foot, the four classmates toasted their hard-earned accomplishment, boarded a plane and took off for Talkeetna, putting Denali in the literal rearview mirror. For now.

"Overall, it was a spectacular experience and a really successful trip," Jake summarized.

So kudos to Eric, Peter, Nick and Jake-four recent alumni who took what they learned at UAA and celebrated their graduations in the most Alaska way possible.

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Check out Eric's climbing blog for his day-by-day account of the trip, as well as a 13-minute video summary.

Written by J. Besl, UAA Office of University Advancement