Denali in detail

For three long days, four members of the Cops on Top team sat in their cramped tents at 17,200 feet on Denali, waiting out a storm that threatened their summit attempt.

“Our goal was to cache some stuff and come down [to 14,500 feet], and the next day, go back up to [17,200 feet], sleep that night, and make it to the summit the next day, because you don’t want to stay at 17 very long,” said Flathead County Sheriff’s Deputy Nelson Grant, 27.

“But we get to 17 and a storm comes in, and, for three days we sit there, in our tents,” he said. “It was brutal, cold. It sucked. I hated being there.”

Spending that much time tent-bound “kind of played with your morale,” said Flathead County Sheriff’s Deputy Caleb Pleasants, 26. “It was kind of miserable and monotonous.” He said team members tried to keep their spirits up by sleeping, trying to eat and huddling inside their tents and playing cards.

“We had three days to make it to the summit,” said Grant. “Saturday and Sunday were [predicted to be] horrible, so Friday was our only day that was nice.”

And on Friday, May 21, Grant and Pleasants; expedition leader and Frankfort, Ind. Police Department Lt. Troy Bacon, 34; and U.S. Forest Service firefighter Steve Janke, 39 climbed through the Alaskan twilight to reach the summit of Denali, also known as Mount McKinley, at 7:30 a.m., becoming the 11th through 14th climbers to summit this year.

Tim Wenthe, 37, an officer with the Montana State University Police Department, who had accompanied the team for part of the climb, stayed behind and maintained the team’s advanced base camp at 14,200 feet. 

They were part of the Cops on Top expedition, climbing North America’s highest peak in memory of fallen Montana Highway Patrol Trooper Michael Haynes. They carried a memorial plaque honoring Haynes to the summit.

“I felt overwhelmed,” said Grant, upon reaching the summit. “The last few steps leading up were pretty painful. It was a long day. But once I got to the summit, it all went away.”

Pleasants called reaching the summit “relieving. It took us so long to get up there, it was pretty cold,” he said. He said the team only climbed for about six days and spent the rest of the expedition waiting out bad weather and acclimatizing.

“When we came back down to like [14,500 feet], everybody’s like ‘did you guys make it?’ and we were like ‘yeah!’ and everybody’s cheering for us, we felt like rock stars,” said Grant.

But the feat wasn’t easy.

As the team made its way to the 20,320-foot summit along Denali’s West Buttress Route, they braved crevasses, steep ice, exposed ice-covered ridges and generally extreme conditions.

“The sun never goes down, but it circles around the tops of the mountains, so it does get shaded. And when it does, it gets so cold,” Grant said.

“The first day I landed there, I had my Nalgene water bottle and my toothbrush, and I poured water on my toothbrush and I looked down and set my bottle down, and I instinctively went to put my toothbrush in my mouth, and I couldn’t fit it in because it was a block of ice in a matter of a second and a half,” he recalled.

And when the sun was out, it glared off the snow intensely enough to burn the roof of Bacon’s mouth.

Grant and Pleasants had to wear noseguards to prevent them being “burned to a crisp.

“When I got back, I looked pretty gnarly,” Grant said. “I had frostbite here,” he said, pointing to his cheeks, “A big beard, sunburn here.”

“Even though it’s like five below zero, it feels warm, and we sweated during the day,” Grant said, explaining how they had to sleep with their wet gear and water bottles with them in their sleeping bags to prevent them from freezing overnight. “We had Nalgenes, boot liners, two pairs of gloves,” he said, “I was so ready to get off the mountain and sleep in a regular bed.”

After summiting, he and Pleasants, roped together, nearly ran down the mountain.

“We were bombing on the way out, we were five hours ahead of everybody,” he said, pointing to a blackened toenail, which he said was caused by the stress of the descent.

Grant and Pleasants spent months preparing for the arduous trek, combining isometric and aerobic training: Strengthening their cores, weight training, running, hiking with 55-pound packs and pulling sleds around a track to simulate the 100-pound sled full of supplies they later hauled up the mountain — even plunging their hands in icy, then hot water to deaden their nerves so their hands wouldn’t be as affected by the temperatures that dipped as low as 55 below zero.

The team flew into Anchorage on May 2, loaded up an airplane, got some last-minute gear, then flew to the 7,200-foot base camp on May 4 on a plane called the “Otter,” equipped with skis on the bottom to enable it to land on glaciers.

On the Cops on Top blog, team members posted expedition updates during their three-week trek:

May 5: The team reached its first camp at 7,800 feet. According to a blog post by Bacon, the team navigated through “white-out conditions” during the long day.

May 6: Pushing on to Camp Two, at 9,800 feet, proved to be “a long brutal day,” according to Bacon’s post, but he said the team persevered by staying hydrated and motivated.

May 7: The team arrived at the next camp, at 11,000 feet.

May 8: A well-earned rest day

May 11: The team had made it to camp at 14,500 feet, braving weather that was “pretty nasty overnight,” according to Bacon.

May 12: According to Janke, reporting from camp at 14,500 feet, “it’s been a pretty brutal week so far, but we’re having a good time and the team is strong and we’re happy to be here.”

May 13: Team members, still at 14,500 feet, are “trying to consume as many calories as we can and water, waiting for the weather to break,” according to Bacon, “trying to rest and get ready for the summit push.”

May 14: According to Pleasants, “it is cold and windy” at the camp. “We’re hoping it will taper off tomorrow,” he said. “We’ve been kind of stormed in here for the last couple of days and tent bound,” he added in a later post that day, saying, “it looks like tomorrow the weather might clear out.”

May 15: “The system that blew through was much fiercer than expected,” Bacon posted. “Last night, all of our tents were leaning over sideways most of the night and it did snow quite a bit. I had to repair some of our walls, our cook tent.... we’ve been stuck here at 14,500 for six days now and we’re getting a little antsy, but we’re staying positive.... it’s a patience and waiting game right now.”

May 17: The team was able to carry a food cache to the 17,200 foot camp, stow it, then return to camp at 14,500 feet to take a rest day.

May 18: Rest day

May 19: Climb to the advanced high camp

May 20: From the advanced high camp at 17,200 feet, Janke posted, “we’ve had some pretty bad weather the last few days and we’ve been doing a lot of digging and building walls.”

“It looks like the weather will be beautiful tomorrow and we’re going to go for the summit. It’s pretty much all or nothing tomorrow as we’re running out of time and it looks like some more weather is coming in.”

May 21: “I’m proud to report that on May 21 at 7:30 p.m., four of us summited Denali,” Bacon posted. “It was a very, very long and brutal day, but we were able to stand up there; proud to stand up there and remember his sacrifice,” he said of the climb honoring Haynes.

Reporter Melissa Weaver may be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at mweaver@dailyinterlake.com