Alaska Range 2026

Background

Few places are as mind numbingly beautiful, awe-striking, and intimidating as the Central Alaska Range. At times, it can feel like a winter playground, with imaginable adventures on every peak across the skyline. At other times, you can feel minuscule huddled in your tent, braving the cold and waiting for the next serac to calve.

Five years ago, I went to the Central Alaska Range for my first time with friends to climb Denali’s West Buttress route. Over two to three weeks (I don’t remember exactly) we climbed, skied and learned the rhythms of Denali. As a kid from Miami, Florida it entirely blew my mind. I’d looked at Denali from the State Park across the highway for years in college on backpacking trips; to be on top of its summit felt surreal.

For the last few years, though, I hadn’t felt drawn to return, I’d wanted to focus my time and effort on adventures closer to home in the Pacific Northwest. But last year something changed for me, I felt the pilot light of Alaska turn back on in my brain. Over the course of the Fall, I talked with Lane, one of my close friends and regular ski partners, and asked to head to the Alaska Range with him. Lane had done a traverse from Purkey Pile to Wonder Lake on skis and has extensive experience in the mountains ‘figuring it out’. He was both someone I was excited to learn from and spent potential days to weeks tent bound with.

Initially, Lane and Nate (a childhood friend of Lane) were psyched to try a route on the northwest side of Sultana; however, Nate and his wife got pregnant and the child was expected in late May/early June, right around when we would leave. We were sad to not have Nate along, but excited for him to enter a new chapter of his life. Lane and I agreed that we would not attempt the route on Sultana, as Lane and Nate had a special connection to it from trying the year prior. Instead, Lane and I would try skiing high on Denali, starting off the ’10 year game’ I started to call it in my mind.

Ski legends (to me at least) like Adam Fabrikant, Sam Hennessey, Peter Dale, Noah Howell, and Billy Haas (to name a few) play the long-game: they head to the greater ranges year-over-year and put themselves in position to ‘get lucky’. Luck aside, they have vast experience and large sample sizes in the range, they don’t go for one smash-and-grab and ski everything all at once. I wanted to begin my journey on that path, to start building the experience in the range for years to come.

Heading into the trip, Lane and I pored over gear, food, and training for months in the lead-up. We’re both a bit anal about preparation. We weighed protein powder, high-carbohydrate powder, and debated each gear item to bring. This trip would be about learnings, more than just sending, so we were out to experiment. We gave ourselves four weeks in the heart of June, leaving Seattle on Memorial Day weekend, with the ‘wishful’ goal of skiing Denali’s Northwest Buttress, a route the late Michael Gardner, Sam Hennessey, and Adam Fabrikant skied as part of their very impressive Cassin-Wonder Lake traverse. Lane had seen it from the tundra the year prior and felt it was an appropriate goal for us to target.

Going in, we talked with Sam H over the phone on the route and tried to ‘mind ski’ the route, identifying the cruxes and potential hazards. We had much more beta than the trio did when they skied it, but that felt appropriate. . . I’m no Gardner/Fabrikant/Hennessey. Lane and I agreed that to give the route a serious attempt, we’d need to see quite a few things go ‘right’:

• We wanted to get eyes on the route from Peters Dome (as a day trip) to see how snow was sticking, coverage, etc.
• We felt we needed a 48 hour weather window at least, even though we’d be going single-push style on the route.
• We wanted at least a 24 hour period beforehand for snow to settle.
• Sustained north winds would be a buzzkill for the route; Sam H had talked about sustained north winds stripping the north faces on Denali the year they did it.

All these bullet points aside, we didn’t want to ‘wing it’, if we dropped off the northside of Denali we wanted it to feel calculated and measured. Think of when you actually let your dehydrated meal sit for 10 minutes and you actually add the right amount of water, not when you’re impatiently hungry (as I most of the times am) and just eat crunchy de-hy soup (as I often do).

Trip Report

On the Way There

We flew into Anchorage on May 23rd and honestly everything went quite smoothly. We had done a significant amount of food prep at home; TSA was not psyched when I brought 28 days worth of white, high-carb powder through the scanner. We did some food re-packing and organized our sleds so that when we did arrive in Talkeetna the next day, we’d be ready to go. Tomorrow came and we hopped in a shuttle to Talkeetna, had our orientation with the rangers, and by 430PM or so we were flying into the range. Woot!! We were aware of our luck, a queue of over 100 climbers had been stuck in Talkeetna for a week just one day prior to our arrival. But the skies parted and there we were, on the airstrip at the earliest possible moment we could have flown on.

I was pleasantly surprised to see my friend Eliot at TAT, flying in right around when we were! I hadn’t seen him in years but it was going to be a friendly party on the mountain. Coming into the trip, I’d anticipated lots of quiet, solo time; I had forgotten about the camaraderie that’s possible on Denali.

When we landed on the airstrip, the basecamp manager Brittany told us about a college student that was performing an experiment on body composition change and muscle loss while on Denali. Lane and I were intrigued! We walked over to her tent and agreed to be willing subjects. She took some measurements and gave us urine sampling bottles; we’d capture a urine sample every 5 days and complete a bi-nightly survey on AMS symptoms and food cravings. At the end of the trip, she’d re-take weight and body comp measurements and compare. What a cool experiment!

Lane and I made the push to 7800′ Camp in the evening light, just as I’d done the last time. Heavy sleds and packs always suck, not much to expand upon there. We rolled into camp around midnight, cranked some hot water and quickly set up the tent, ready for night one on the glacier.

Getting in Motion

I couldn’t do anything right the first morning. Getting the Whisperlite lit? Fail. Opening the gallon of white gas? Fail. Oofta. Thanks Lane for bearing with me.

We started our day not decided if we’d single carry to 11 camp or stop at 9′ Camp and then cache up to 11. The queue out of camp had already formed and even though we crawled, we made it to 9′ Camp within a few hours. We were game to push on.

The weather from 9′ Camp to 11′ Camp wasn’t a blizzard but wasn’t sunshine and roses either. It was just in-between, where it was nasty enough to keep us focused on moving forwards, but also sent us slightly deeper into the pain cave with the packs and sleds. Our hip bones burned by the end, that must be some right of passage on Denali. We made it to 11′ Camp by dinnertime and set up the tent, very glad to be done with that haul. We were worked for sure, but had time to settle in and rest.

Bumps in the Road

Our time at 11′ Camp was a bit of a roller coaster, at least for me. Our first day there we rested, hydrated, played chess, watched TV on the tablet I brought, and skied some evening laps. Couldn’t have been better. Our second day we cached at Windy Corner, getting work in that we were psyched would pay off later.

Then. . .

I can’t breathe. Our third night at 11′ Camp I worsened significantly. I overheated in the night, tearing off any layers I had. There’s a slight downhill slant in the tent platform, could it be that? I tried to reason in any way I could, what is going on?

I woke, feeling terrible. Moving around camp felt extremely effortful, I’d take 10 steps and breathe short, shallow breaths that gave me nothing. My SpO2 was normal, I wasn’t coughing fluid. . . huh. I texted with two friends back home who work as doctors in the Emergency Department; the advice was to take it easy and rest.

The next day, I tried to do a lap on the ski hill but no dice. After getting 100 yards in I shut it down, this feels dumb. I was getting better, I could feel, but still not there. Another day resting, confused.

Finally, the next day I woke up and felt somewhat better. My breathing was still not normal but I could move. We made a cache run to 14′ Camp, as both some work towards moving up and a test to see how I was doing. I went suuuuuuper slow, stopping every now and again to reset my breathing. Skiing down felt magical. We skied over Squirrel Hill this time, as opposed to Washburn’s ?, to check out the lower Northwest Buttress. It looked big, icy, and steep!

Back in camp, everyone oohed and aahed as a crusher trio Gavin/Morgan/Brian skied the Kahiltna Dome. Lane had met them the other day, they were going for the NW Ridge of Sultana as their mission, so rad!!

The Neighborhood Forms

After 4-5 days at 11′ Camp we moved on up to 14′ Camp, finding a castle of a campsite to move into. I still wasn’t 100% but was trending better. Once up at 14′ Camp I started to feel better, thankfully!

Momentum started to build back. We did a lap up towards the Orient Express, meeting crusher Max Kilcoyne who was on a mission to attempt the FKT on the Cassin Ridge. We skied the Rescue Gully with a NZ badass Maz Krogh, getting some high altitude skiing reps that sharpened the mental edges. I did another solo rep on the Rescue Gully, finally feeling 100%. And more than any skiing, we created the ‘neighborhood’: our crew of hooligans that would cook, hang, and brunch together.

The real world started to fade away, replaced by the presence of moment at this high altitude cul de sac. While I’d anticipated days of endless quiet and scary introspection, what was unfolding was a high altitude summer camp with incredible people. Quesadilla parties, evenings watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy, mornings starting at 10AM. I can understand how the real world fades away. . .

To the Top

A ridiculously good 4-5 day weather window had presented itself. We weren’t fully acclimatized, nor ready, to give our main goal a try but we did feel ready to do our first run up to the summit. Coming into the trip Lane and I had discussed heading up to the summit and skiing up high before giving the NWB a try. Here we were, and though my illness at 11′ Camp was definitely a bump in the road, the stretch ahead seemed re-paved and ready for driving.

Our rough plan was to head up on Weds June 3rd to try and summit and ski the Messner. Our new friends Landon and Ben, two USA Skimo athletes from Salt Lake, were also planning to head up to the summit and try to ski the Messner. Our friend Maz came over to our tent, asking to join as well; her partner was sick and not feeling up for the push, sadly. We agreed to initiate her into our team, Team Bird Alert, provided that she pick a spirit bird. Maz was a Kea, being from NZ; I was a Hooded Merganzer, the only bird I could remember from Lane’s deck of bird flashcards; Lane was a red pole, as he’d had a nosebleed on day one and his OuterU facemask now bloodstained.

Our summit day honestly couldn’t have gone smoother. The coldest part of the day was ascending the Rescue Gully before light hit it, something we’d done intentionally as the day before it was roasting hot. Once at 17′ Camp, though, Maz/Lane/I brewed up and basked in the sunlight. The day was comically warm with no wind, a clear slam dunk of a summit window. Which also meant there were loads of people ahead of us. We’d agreed to not rope up for the Autobahn, seeing the rope more as a tripping hazard than a safety net. We managed to pass some folks on the Autobahn but quickly got into a traffic jam. We stood idle for a bit, not wanting to cause commotion by dodging folks on a slope that kills people nearly every year (including just days prior this year). However, after nearly half an hour idle we opted to pass below the groups and just crampon over towards Denali Pass. Seeing rope marks and some loose gear from a group of Latvians that had fallen and died was jarring, to say the least.

Once at Denali Pass, we reached the slogging phase of the climb, now past the crux of the climbing route. I threw in a headphone, turned on an audiobook, and the three of us began grinding it out. Our pace slowed but we kept making forward progress. At one point, above Zebra Rock, I switched to skinning which was a nice change of movement. Death was near us still, an elderly climber wrapped in a sleeping bag just a hundred yards or so off the trail near Zebra Rock who had died from a medical emergency. A dose of Green Boots on Everest.

Across the Football Field, then up Pig Hill to the summit we slogged on. The weather was still wondrous and though we were around an hour behind our initial time estimate there was no reason to stop now. Maz/Lane/I checked in with each other, making sure we all felt good enough still to summit and ski down.

Walking along the summit ridge I peered down the south face, trying to imagine Andreas Fransson skiing down, solo, into the abyss. Absolutely wild.

Around 6PM we topped out, finally having to put on more than just a windbreaker and small gloves. What a day! We were tired but very ready to transition to our dessert stomachs, our ski legs. We’d eaten the broccoli.

The five of us now (M/L/S and Landon/Ben) pushed off the top and skied down to the Football Field. A short bump back up to Kahiltna Horn and we were starting down towards the Messner. Max had told us getting into the line can feel a little tricky and indeed he was right. The top is convex and there’s loads of rocks to make sense of. After some investigating, though, we found the entrance and pushed in.

The first couple hundred feet were 3D sastrugi but once in the upper hourglass the snow turned to firm but edgeable chalk. Landon and I grouped on far skier’s right of the hourglass, Maz/Lane/Ben on far skier’s left. The scale of the line was breaking my brain. This line is insanely HUGE. I couldn’t comprehend the position we were in, Sultana and Begguya in the background watching Lane make the initial turns looking like a speck. I made some cautious turns to test the snow, Landon showed me up with stylish turns at speed. Wow.

The pitch of the Messner never exceeded 40-45 degrees, even at the intimidating-from-afar chokepoint (which felt much more reasonable when in it). Conditions only improved as we got further down, turning from firm chalk to thin powder on a firm base. We leapfrogged, everyone taking moments to regain oxygen at the altitude. Once out of the choke we pushed out skier’s right to join into the Sunshine Face, which Ben and Landon had skied days earlier. This was the best skiing of the day by far, with sluffy but enjoyable powder sprinkled with occasional patches of ice. I never felt entirely comfortable opening it up, but Landon and Ben showed it was possible. Impressive.

I led us down the Sunshine Face and followed Ben and Landon’s tracks over the schrund’. Skiing out towards 14′ Camp, I turned and looked back. This place is like the Colosseum and tonight, we’re the Gladiators. All of 14′ Camp had been watching, once the last person crossed the schrund’ we could hear whoops and hollers. We skied over to our friends Eliot/Clem/Ronan and hugged, they had been watching with both nerves and excitement. When conditions are good, 14′ Camp can be a real like ski movie theater. This had been a dose of that. But it’s not always glory. . .

Sobering Reality

The day after our Messner day (June 4) we began by basking in the sun, cooking pancakes and just enjoying life at 14′ Camp. The pressure was off, we could take a breather. At one point during the afternoon we noticed a group congregated over by the skin / boot tracks up towards the Orient, stationary for hours. We were all confused at what was happening, it honestly just looked like a group had their skis planted in the snow and was ‘hanging out’. Huh. After a trip to The Edge of the World and the Poop Crevasse, we still noticed them there. Weird. In the evening hours we saw a helicopter fly above but still couldn’t make out what was going on.

The next day (June 5), I got a cryptic message from a friend at home that said ‘Be careful, I heard about Robin’. Robin? I haven’t heard about Robin? What happened?? I knew Robin Pendery, a local PNW-ite, was up at 14′ Camp on ranger patrol, but this gossip hadn’t traveled yet. Plenty of gossip and news of accidents had traveled throughout camp but this blurb hadn’t.

Landon, Ben, Lane and I set out for a day trip to try and ski the Seattle Ramp and on our way passed a hole in the snow around which there were tons of tracks, both skin and boot tracks. Huh. We bailed on the Seattle Ramp after finding some light snow over blue ice, it wasn’t adding up. When back in camp, though, the text messages started to flood in. News of Robin’s passing was adding up now; that hole had been her crevasse fall. Fuck.

Days ago, 14′ Camp had felt like a Colosseum, an arena for big mountain skiing. Now, with a crevasse fall death, it felt somewhere between a prison and a morgue. Venturing out of camp solo for ‘sanity laps’ felt unsafe, even if the snow bridges hadn’t materially changed in 48 hours. Whether right or wrong, the other accidents on the mountain thus far had felt explainable / excusable, circumstances that didn’t feel as close to my reality. Falling on the Autobahn, medical emergency, frostbite in single boots, I felt those were explainably avoidable. But falling into a crevasse while on a ski tour, that could have been me! Hell, I had been up there days prior and a day afterwards, legitimately feet away. 30+ people must have headed up those slopes in the days surrounding the accident on their way to the Upper West Rib cutoff / Seattle Ramp, almost entirely unroped.

Fuck.

What are we doing here?

Resetting the Sights

What are we doing here? It was a valid question. My Mom even asked me, “so, now that you’ve skied off the summit, when will you be back?” It’s an odd response to say, “well, that wasn’t the goal.” But it wasn’t, our goal had been to ski off the northside and the summit had been a ‘warmup’.

After sitting in 14′ Camp for a few days and with weather forecasted to blow strong northerly winds, Lane and I chatted. We’d agreed that to attempt the NWB we needed to see a lot of things going right, and to be honest that wasn’t happening. Winds were stripping the mountain, not pasting them with new snow. We’d see a crevasse fall death right in front of us. We’d skied Rescue Gully again and this time it was significantly icier and worse. Granted, the northside of the mountain is likely (or unknowingly) very different in condition than the southside, but things just weren’t adding up. As much of a bummer it’d be to not try the NWB, it wasn’t meeting the style and method we’d agreed to attempt it in.

With the northside struck from the run list, the remaining stoke shifted to the Orient. . . and Sultana. Swiveling the head 180 degrees opened the eyes to the monster that lies across the way. The Orient Express had been skied by a party before us on the Messner but they had said it was crappy and icy and it certainly looked that way now. Granted, I’ve read that conditions can change in a few days on Denali when a wet June storm rolls through. But the stoke for Sultana was building.

I pitched it to Lane, the Sultana psych grew. We’d heard about Sam H/Ryan G and Gavin/Morgan/Brian skiing the NW Ridge, which had been Lane and Nate’s project the year prior. Lane had vowed to not ski it, keeping it for a future trip with Nate. I was fine with that, doing Sultana Ridge out-and-back still seemed like a proud adventure! We chatted it through, identifying the heavily crevassed ridge as a hazard that we should not take lightly given the recent circumstances.

Lane and I were psyched to try it in a ‘single push’, not bringing a sleeping bag or tent, rather trying to move as continuously as possible. We did some reality check math on Caltopo and it’d be a huge day, 18+’k of vert, but with some snow naps we figured we could stretch it out, ultramarathon style. If you can’t run, shuffle. If you can’t shuffle, walk. If you can’t walk, take a nap.

We prepared to head down to the airstrip, disbanding the Neighborhood but not before we had built a 9-person movie theater snow cave for everyone to enjoy!

On our way down we stopped in 11′ Camp to grab one of our CMC’s, as well as give my roommate Drew a big hug. Two folks were perched outside their tent, on their stoop watching the scene. I recognized the voice of one as we skied down. Is that Adam? It was the unmistakable voice of Adam Fabrikant. After giving Drew a hug and stashing our skis by our cache I went over to Adam, and Billy, the duo, to shoot the shit. Adam and Billy’s stoke and dynamism was contagious. We chatted about the NWB with Adam, who with a chuckle said ‘it’s probably always icy’. He encouraged us to head down to the airstrip and treat ourselves to an ‘oxygen milkshake’.

A Long, Long Walk

Returning to the airstrip wasn’t trivial in a whiteout but we made it through alright. The oxygen did feel quite milkshake-like, which was lovely. After a good night’s sleep, we spent the day lounging and preparing for our quest. We’d leave camp around 8-9PM, trying to hit Crosson in the dead of night when it was most frozen. We thought Crosson would take us 5-6 hours from the base; from there, we didn’t really have a clue on timeline.

We chatted with Wyatt, a soloist who was going to head up as well, and headed out right around 8PM or so. We had 2-3 days of clear, good weather, a MSR Reactor and can of gas, and down puffies/pants as well as a bivy sack. We were psyched, and we had a booter to follow up Crosson. That part was clutch.

We flew up Crosson, without issue following the booter. It had clearly been put in during the heat of the day so the boot prints were deep and refrozen now during the dark of night. It was windless and calm, the dusk of mid-June Alaskan night having set in, not quite a sunset. Our emotions were heightened, we were doing the thing.

Wyatt caught up to us impressively quickly and we leapfrogged with him and said hello to Andrew and Greg, a team camped just below the summit of Crosson. Five people on Sultana in a day?? It happened nearly a week prior, why not again?

We reached the summit of Crosson around 3 AM which has to be one of the most mind melting experiences of recent memory for me. Sunrise over the tundra behind Denali, damn. The immensity of the Alaska Range was putting on a show for Lane and I, we were overjoyed. We clicked into skis and enjoyed a surreal ski down the ridge to the saddle between Crosson and Pk 12,472′, where we stopped to brew up. My right foot was cold but I was otherwise comfortable and excited for the day ahead.

We watched Wyatt make an attempt to climb around Pk 12,472′, but he turned around near the top, reaching his comfortable limit for soloing around huge crevasses. Very fair, to be honest Lane and I were a bit relieved. It was no joke terrain without a roped partner.

The crux of getting onto Sultana Ridge proper was a knife-edge section after Peak 12,472′, a small dose of what knife edge skiing in the Alaska Range can be like. After skiing some wind buff and sastrugi around the summit we approached the edge, Lane leading the way proudly. We donned axes for extra protection but the snow was good and grippy. Skiing at 4AM along a knife edge above the Peters was some way to start the day!

Good fucking lead dude, I said to Lane. (Fist bump). We transitioned to skins for a brief moment along the ridge where it was particularly flat, then. . .

Sometimes in the mountains time stops moving linearly. It can speed up, hours feeling like seconds, or it can slow down, minutes feeling like hours. This time was neither, time was no longer a dimension. We simply were slogging, now with mid-calf boot penetration and daytime sun above, plenty of crevasses about to keep us on edge.

Have you ever set a stopping point for yourself that becomes unreasonably far? Some spot where you’ll stop and eat a snack or take a piss? Well, that’s what we did with our nap spot. Let’s stop at the base of the ‘headwall’, we agreed, the headwall referring to the final 5,000′ pitch at the end of the endless ridge. 8AM, 9AM, 10AM, 11AM. . . time rolled on and we dragged. I struggled mounting one steep, crevassed lip that I ended up swapping with Lane, further draining momentum. We needed a timeout but the clock kept running.

Finally, around 11AM, we probed out a spot at the end of the ridge, the promised ‘base of the headwall’, and went down for a nap. How long do you want to set the alarm for?, I asked Lane? Let’s do an hour. An hour it was, I was sure glad to rest.

40 minutes later I woke, feeling like I had slept some. Some, not a ton, but some. I got the Reactor back on and melted some more water.

. . .

When our hour alarm rang, Lane and I had a chat. It was around noon at this point. We were swimming out into the ocean, a big ocean, and needed to ensure we got back to shore. We hugged it out, drank the rest of the Reactor, and agreed to turn around. It still wasn’t cake to get back, we had 3-4k’ of return vert along Sultana Ridge and loads of crevasses to dodge. But there was a booter and we could follow that somewhat mindlessly even if we fatigued further.

We made it back over the endless ridge to Crosson, skinning where we could and booting the rest. It was around 6-7P at this point and we were hoping that Crosson would be some form of reverse corn or solid crust, rather than 5,000′ of breakable crust. And luckily, it was! Crust, not reverse corn, but some form of supportable crust aside from a patch of breaker here and there. Again, the ski legs felt better than the uphill legs, the dessert stomach taking over. Back on the glacier below, we took a sigh of relief a bit. We weren’t home yet, but shore was in sight.

We didn’t have to discuss it too lengthily, but this was the end of the trip for us. We’d made our attempt on Denali, agreed to forego the NWB, and made a solid effort on Sultana. We had ~1 week left but we were ready to call it. We skinned back to the airstrip, ate some quesadillas that Landon and Ben graciously prepared for us, and flew out the next morning, in quite a frenzy I might add. It was a dizzying end to the trip.

Takeaways & Do’s/Do Not’s

Coming into this trip, I’d told myself this was year 1 of the ’10 Year Plan’. If you go to the Alaska Range 10 times, you’ll get lucky. You don’t get lucky on round one, necessarily.

Truth is, we got lucky on round one. No time waiting in Talkeetna. A splitter summit window on Denali and skiing the Messner. I got healthy again after getting sick at 11′ Camp. There was a lot that went right, even if we did turn around on Sultana and didn’t attempt NWB. No broken gear. All fingers, toes, and nose. And we got home early with all of that.

This year left me motivated to return, the pilot light for the Alaska Range is on. I play back the Sultana day in my head still and try and figure out what I could have done differently, whether it be strategy around fueling, napping, or just discussing the task at hand. I still don’t want to YOLO it in the mountains but I do feel like there’s some way to ultramarathon-style it: if you can’t run, shuffle. If you can’t shuffle, walk. If you can’t walk, nap. There’s a fine line there with fatigue and critical decision making, as well as consequential skiing, but with the right weather and warm kit, I think more napping could help. Sleep when it’s warm, move when it’s cold.

Here’s some other notes I wrote down, some Do-Again and Don’t-Do-Again:

Do Again

• Airtrim mask
  • We brought these for use at higher altitudes and honestly sleeping with it was what we used it most for. Especially when I was trying to combat whatever respiratory grossness I had at 11′ Camp.
• Heated socks
  • I have the Lenz ones with the RCB 2000 batteries. Game changers.
• Donuts!!!
  • We brought sour cream donuts with us and this was honestly the snack that I craved the most.
• Chess
  • Mini chess set was sweet.
• Tablet with shows
  • I brought a Samsung Galaxy tablet with movies and shows downloaded and we watched nearly every night. Also great for entertaining a group, the bigger screen is much easier to see than a phone.
• Vapor barriers
  • VBL socks worked great for keeping boot liners dry.
• Tent floor foam
  • We bought some of the Forty Below tent floor foam to line our Hilleberg tent and it was amazing. Honestly we didn’t even really use the ZLite pads we brought, we used those to prop our heads up mostly.
• Curry cubes
  • Japanese curry cubes were a nice luxury in couscous or potatoes.
• Butter
  • We didn’t bring olive oil but rather butter. Was nice to throw in couscous, oats, or just barter off.
• Always take tea bag out of bottle
  • This is both a Do and Don’t, sometimes I forgot to and it’d become a brick at night and then break, leaving tea leaves all over my baby nalgene.
• Turn the cache bag into snow bag
  • Having a snow bag inside the cook tent was very nice at 14′ Camp.
• Ramen is super easy to eat
  • Ramen was what we could eat evening over evening up at 14′ Camp. It’s brothy, warm, and easy to eat.
• Solar panel rips, can likely bring smaller power bank
  • I brought a 10,000 mAh and 20,000 mAh power bank and honestly I think I could have gotten away with just a 10,000 mAh bank and a solar panel.

Don’t Do Again

• No instant potatoes
  • I ate these once and then never wanted them again.
• No spicy ramen, too spicy
  • We brought the Shin Ramyun, which are delicious, but when your lips are sunburnt they just hurt. I ended up not putting the spicy broth packets in and replaced the broth with boulloin cubes and that worked well.
• More tang, hot tang is really nice
  • Lane brought Tang and wow, Tang must have been designed for Denali.
• Get a pot with a pouring spout
  • Our pot didn’t have one and there was lots of spillage. Or just be better at pouring than us.
• Don’t fill baby nalgene at night, it will just freeze
  • I would fill my 1L Nalg and keep it in the tent; eventually I’d learn to just leave the baby Nalgene empty but there were a few mornings when I really wanted coffee and had to wait to thaw it out.
• Don’t bring water bladder, never used
  • We brought a 2L water bladder thinking we’d use it. We didn’t. Froze too easily
• Bring the antenna for the radio, it helps a lot
  • We had a Rocky Talkie 5W which was great but even that struggled at times to get clean signal at 14′ Camp from the Crosson repeater. Bring the antenna.
• Bring a spade for 14 camp? Only if it’s lightweight. Can probably borrow from someone
  • Cutting into the ground at 14′ Camp can still be difficult. We had to use a combo of ice screw to start a pilot hole, snow saw, and shovel to cut our vestibule out.
• 3L pot would be optimal then only need one pot
  • We brought a 2L pot and 4L pot and somewhere in the middle would have been great for just a group of two.
• Maybe bring a thermos?
• Bring hashbrowns
  • These were so yummy. Thankfully we got gifted lots.
• Bring more toilet paper, easy to barter with
  • We thought about bringing Zyns to barter with but honestly toilet paper would be the move.
• Less food, can get at 14 camp
  • Plenty of people say this, but it’s really true. We ended up giving away food again. And fuel.
• Bring towel and toiletries for shower after in Talkeetna
  • We didn’t bring either for TKA and we bought overly expensive shampoo at Nagley’s and then air dryed after showering at the Laundromat.