Cops to mount Denali in memory of fallen trooper

Stumbling through the mountains toward their car, best friends and climbing buddies Nelson Grant and Caleb Pleasants were overjoyed when they reached the vehicle around 4 a.m. one day last March.

Exhausted from the weekend trek near Libby, the two Flathead County Sheriff’s deputies switched on their cell phones and settled in for the drive back to Kalispell.

But as they left the mountains, voicemail after voicemail came through.

And they realized something was terribly wrong.

“We pulled off the road,” Grant said. “We were listening at the same time, looking at each other, getting all these calls from deputies we worked with ... it changed our whole mood.”

“We didn’t cry or anything, but it seemed like two hours before we spoke a word to each other.”

The news was grim: Montana Highway Patrol Trooper Michael Haynes had been seriously injured in a head-on collision. He would die five days later.

In honor of Haynes, Grant and Pleasants will join four other officers from around the United States in ascending Denali — North America’s highest peak — in May.

“We’re super, super pumped about it,” Grant, 27, said. “He lives on by what we are doing.”

Pleasants, 26, said honoring Haynes has given the 2010 Denali Memorial Expedition a more personal meaning.

Grant and Pleasants will climb the Alaska peak, also known as Mount McKinley, with an organization called Cops on Top, made up of volunteers from law enforcement and public service who undertake annual mountain-climbing expeditions to commemorate officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty. 

Lifelong outdoorsmen who have climbed together for about three years, Grant and Pleasants already have spent months preparing for the arduous trek.

They combine 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 will haul up the mountain.

They even plunge their hands in icy, then hot, water to deaden their nerves so their hands won’t be as affected by temperatures that commonly dip to 40 below zero. 

“We’ve been training quite hard,” Pleasants said.

When Grant found out about Cops on Top last fall, he told Pleasants about it right away.

He e-mailed a “climbing resume,” complete with photos of himself on area summits, a list of peaks he had summited in the last year and a list of personal interests and professional experience, to expedition leader Troy Bacon. Bacon is a lieutenant with the Frankfort Police Department in Indiana.

Bacon called back, and after talking with Grant and Pleasants on the phone, offered them spots on the team.

“I immediately was psyched,” Grant said.

They were selected from a pool of about 20 applicants. 

“They definitely have the experience,” Bacon said.

Motivation and physical and mental stamina, also attributes of Grant and Pleasants, are other factors he said he and Steve Janke, expedition manager and a U.S. Forest Service firefighter, were looking for when putting together the team.

“Big mountains are all about suffering and they have to be able to push through that,” Bacon said.

Grant and Pleasants aren’t the first two officers from the same department, but Bacon said it isn’t common.

“I’ve seen guys who are at each others’ throats and I’ve seen guys who have carried each other,” he said. “I’d like to think that they will motivate each other through the hard times.”

The fallen officers on whose behalf the climbs are undertaken are nominated by family, friends and law enforcement organizations around the country. After the nomination period, a board of directors reads through the nominees and makes a selection.

A memorial plaque honoring Haynes will travel with the Cops on Top team to the summit and will be given to Haynes’ widow, Tawny, upon their return.

Summiting the tallest mountain in North America won’t be an easy feat.

Grant said the expedition team will establish several camps as they climb to 20,320 feet along Denali’s West Buttress Route, braving crevasses, steep ice and exposed ice-covered ridges.

Along the way, the team will post audio blogs to the Cops on Top Web page about current mountain conditions and team progress.

The team is hoping to summit during National Police Week, but the timing will be contingent on the rapidly changing conditions on a mountain known for extreme cold and fierce storms.

The expedition is expected to last 15 days, provided there are no storm delays. It could last as long as 27 days. The National Park Service calls the Himalayas “tropical by comparison.”

Between park permits, fuel, food and other equipment, climbers will end up forking over close to $3,000 each.

Grant and Pleasants hope to raise $4,000 for the trek through their Web site, http://www.firstgiving.com/calebpleasants.

They have raised a little more than $1,000 so far. Donations also are accepted through Cops on Top at http://copsontop.com.

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