A ladder similar to this helped ensure that Tejas would be safe while crossing crevasses
In 1984, Japanese adventurer Naomi Uemura set out to make the first solo winter ascent of Denali. Uemura was flown to the Kahiltna Glacier, and, among others, the Japanese press tried to keep track of him on the mountain. Uemura, whom Vern Tejas considers a personal hero, was the first person to climb Denali alone during the normal summer climbing months. He did so in eight days round-trip in 1970.
Naomi was a busy guy; he was always chasing adventure and the physical and exploratory challenges that stretched a man’s capabilities. He made a solo trip to the North Pole. On that journey, he had to shoot a polar bear that was menacing him. He also floated the Amazon River. At various times, Uemura also made solo ascents of Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Aconcagua, Mont Blanc, and the Matterhorn. Uemura wrote best-selling books about his adventures, and there is a museum named after him in Japan. It was natural that he would want to book-end his pioneering Denali solo with a winter solo. It was right up his alley—mountain climbing and cold weather.
Climbing by one’s self, one has the advantage of setting the pace without anyone else being consulted. However, you are by yourself with no assistance at hand if something goes wrong. Solo climbing calls for tremendous self-reliance and good judgment, especially in a precarious environment. Between the limited hours of daylight, crevasses, forbidding temperatures, powerful winds, and snowstorms, winter climbing can be dangerous.
The first climb of Denali in winter was accomplished by a group of Alaskan climbers. Three members of the party—Ray Genet, Art Davidson, and Dave Johnston—reached the top. While successful, their journey was an ordeal as they ran short of food and became trapped high on the mountain by storms. But they lived to tell the story, and Davidson published a marvelously written book called Minus-148.
More recently, Minnesota polar adventurer Lonnie Dupre, from Grand Marais, completed a solo climb in January of 2015. Any winter climb of Denali is notable (there have not been many), and any solo climb during that season multiplies the risks and difficulties. Lonnie’s climb differed from Vern’s and others because he summited in January when there is less day-light and colder temperatures. To illustrate how complex the ascent can be, the successful climb was Dupre’s fourth try. Dupre’s success merits special note; during an earlier era, Dupre would have been vying to seize the prize of making the first-ever winter solo, but he was too late. Uemura, to the degree he succeeded, and Tejas had come along years before.
On his 1984 trip, Uemura communicated to the world by radio that on February 12, he had successfully reached the summit of Denali and was beginning his descent. He perhaps worked his way down to 18,000 feet or 17,200 feet. Some suggest he slipped on the Autobahn and tumbled into a crevasse or was buried by drifting snow. But he was never heard from again, and his body was never found. Many people believe he had sought shelter from a storm in a snow cave, but then something went wrong. The official date of his death is given as February 13, 1984.
When Vern Tejas set out to follow the same West Buttress route four years later, he and the rest of the mountaineering world viewed the solo winter ascent of the mountain as a task uncompleted.
When climbing is thought of as a sport, the biggest prize, first place or the gold medal, is awarded to someone who makes the first ascent of a peak. In most cases, due to the accident of birth, those prizes are claimed by others who came before you. Next, climbers seek to put up new routes, ones never tried or completed. But again, depending on when you were born, all of that may have been accomplished on a certain mountain by others who came along earlier. This was virtually all true on Denali. The chief major challenge remaining for an accomplished climber was to solo the mountain in winter and live to talk about it. In 1984, the Japanese adventurer Naomi Uemura set out to make the first solo winter ascent of Denali and died trying.
Four years later, I set out to try to become the first person to complete the solo winter ascent. The definition of winter is built around the calendar. As long as you are finished before the first day of spring in late March, it counts as winter. A big ingredient for climbing in Alaska is how much daylight you have. That far north, in the heart of winter around December 21, there is very little daylight. So you don’t catch many people trying a solo then. March can be friendlier because you have much more light. The weather may be just as awful, but at least you can see. My departure date was February 15. I had just returned from guiding a climb on Aconcagua in Argentina, going above 22,000 feet. I was in a hurry to get going because I was acclimated from the South American climb. I actually wanted to leave on February 12, but pilot Lowell Thomas Jr. was still on a trip to Hawaii.
A big danger to a solo climber on Denali stems from crevasses, cracks on glaciers or ice sheets, usually disguised by a thin layer of snow. They are hard to see, and even the most experienced climber can be trapped unawares. When you climb in a group where such gaping holes form in the snow, you are all roped together. If the ground suddenly shifts and drops you down, you can be readily hauled out. If you are by yourself, there is no one to rely on. A key part of my strategy was to design self-protection. I utilized an aluminum ladder that could expand and contract. I could slip it over my head and attach it to my harness horizontally as I walked across glacial terrain on Denali. It vastly expanded my footprint to catch both sides of a crevasse and prevent me from tumbling down to an abyss. I could contract it so it was easier to carry, and then park it in an area above base camp for lighter travel later in non-crevasse zones. I bought my ladder at the Pay N’ Pack store in Anchorage. It was a sixteen-foot-long extension ladder which could collapse to eight feet for travel on a plane. I brought it home to the garage, fully extended it on blocks and jumped on it in the middle to see if it was going to be strong enough to hold my weight. It bent. So I turned it around, jumped again, and bent it back into shape. Then I shortened it to twelve feet, overlapping the steps, reinforcing it by making it double. I then lashed two aluminum pickets to it, too, for more strength. For the same purpose, Naomi used bamboo poles long enough to keep him from falling into crevasses. He set them up in two different directions and attached himself to the middle of the X.
The winter climb was my fourteenth time on Denali, though all of the others were, of course, during the normal climbing season, not in winter. I was well aware of the areas where crevasses could be bothersome, where the steepest and most exposed parts were, where the wind was likely to blow hardest, and how much a person could reasonably expect to gain in altitude in a given day. Deeper snow, stronger winds, and colder temperatures were likely to diminish the pace that I might set during a guided climb. However, I did not have to look after other climbers; I was only looking after myself.
One night, in a snow cave at around 18,000 feet, completely enveloped by darkness, I felt a presence. I believe it was the spirit of Naomi Uemura. I did not see a ghost. I did not hear anything except the wind, which was unique because I was deep inside a snow cave, but I felt it was him. In fact, I let out “Good morning!” in Japanese. It was a one-time thing, but that moment has always stayed with me. I don’t know if I interpreted it as being Uemura’s blessing, but I would like to think his spirit remained there. After all, it was likely his snow cave from four years earlier.
On the way down, a storm blew in and the winds roared and I had to pause in another snow cave. Despite my impatience to get down and off the mountain, I had to wait things out. Many of the worst climbing accidents occur because people rush on the descent when they are very tired, and the euphoria and determination of reaching the summit has worn off. The wind was so loud at times that I inserted ear plugs to block the noise. And because I was delayed, I had to ratchet my food intake down. Ironic for a guy who pushed for better menus on guided trips. Ideally, at altitude on a climb of Denali, I think the proper caloric level is 5,000 a day. I had hoped to be off the mountain sooner than the twenty-nine days it took me. I only took sixteen days’ worth of rations, so I had to conserve towards the end. I didn’t know if the storm would fade after one day or five; I was on a crash diet. When food is short, my rule is to never eat more than half of what I have with me.
Pilot Lowell Thomas Jr. was trying to keep track of me with flyovers in his small plane, and the news media asked him about my progress. I was wearing a bright red snowsuit, which contrasted sharply against white snow, but there were several days when Lowell had to tell people that he saw no sign of me on the peak which created a definite uneasiness amongst my loved ones, friends, and the public at large. This was only four years after Uemura had been to the top and vanished and that type of thing was certainly on people’s minds. A lot of people were praying for me, hoping the same thing did not happen again. Most assuredly, I did not want to die trying. I was thirty-five years old and hoped I still had a lot of years still ahead of me.
After the successful winter ascent of Hunter, I thought this might be my thing, dealing better with cold weather climbing than most people. This was different because I was on my own which needed a tremendous amount of preparation, but by 1988, I had also gained a large amount of climbing and survival experience.
I think the biggest difference between being out there with a bunch of people in summer and doing it solo in the winter time is not that the environment is much harsher, but that you have to be more psyched up for it. You have to know that you are going to survive. It has to be innate that you know you can handle all of the challenges. It is self-reliance and knowledge that I could protect myself from crevasses in two or three different ways, that I could navigate four or five ways. I carried a map, a compass, wands, and could follow the wind direction. I knew I could employ different methods and use them as checks for each other.
Concentration is also very big. You’re in the moment every step, but you cannot be so focused that you can’t absorb the big picture. You’re hearing things; you’re smelling things; you’re feeling things. When it comes to figuring out where a crevasse is, you use all of your sensory input. You try to see it, hear where the wind is coming from, and feel the little swells in the snow when you’re walking.
I know of climbers who have gone in solo and been so freaked out when they realize they were truly alone there, aware of what can kill them, that they turn back on day one. Crevasses, frostbite, avalanches, and hypothermia are threats. Those are the four big killers in winter, so steeling the psyche is imperative. A winter climber must recognize that, if anything happens, there is no one to help. Climbers have to believe in their own ability to deal with whatever situation comes your way.
Overall, physical preparation did not take much longer for me than it did for a summer climb. The difference was that I was carrying more protection for the cold. Instead of just taking one sleeping bag, I took two sleeping bags. Instead of taking a stove, I took two stoves because if one malfunctioned, I was dead. Anything and everything can go wrong. I had to have backup.
Guided trips are planned for twenty-one days, but I thought I could make the climb in twelve. There was a limit to how much my equipment could weigh, including food. I packed sixteen days’ worth of rations, estimating that would give me a four-day cushion. My total carrying weight for the solo was about 150 pounds. I planned on two carries per move up in altitude, split each time between my pack and a sled I pulled. Especially in the winter, though, I did not want to get separated from my food and fuel too much. I made the carries shorter because of that.
If a climber is not with his food and fuel when a storm hits, he has a very marginal amount of time that he can hang out. If he runs out of fuel, he will dehydrate and die. Instead of making a three- or four-mile carry and then turning back, I did multiple shuttles of a mile. There were about eight hours of light to work with. As I moved, I stayed in snow caves, or snow trenches I dug, shielding me from the wind. Inside, the shelters stayed at the freezing level, thirty-two degrees. One time, around 12,500 feet, the snow wasn’t right for building, but I had to make do with what I had. I almost got blown out during the night. Working by the glow of my head light, I was crawling on my hands and knees with my crampons on and ice axe in my hand to cut blocks for repairs. I fought the wind until I finally made large enough snow blocks to hold everything down. It’s cold enough in April during the regular climbing season; it was plenty cold in February.
At my 16,200 camp, I was running low on food and found some left-behind food supplies. There was a duffel bag full of freeze-dried sweet-and-sour pork. I ate so much of it that I still cannot eat it now. At 17,200 feet, there was already a snow cave in place, and I used that for shelter. Then the weather deteriorated, and I was essentially stuck. The wind was too furious to move up. When that happens, all a climber can do is wait it out and be patient. When the weather got so extreme that I was pinned down, I had to sit still until it abated. I hoped it would be over in hours. Whether it went on for ten days or two months, either way I was screwed. I just wondered, “What will it take for me to be able to move out?”
Being trapped in a storm can be boring. When I packed, there was no wiggle room for anything considered to be excess, non-survival weight. I did not bring a copy of War and Peace with me, but I did bring a radio. I am a fan of public radio and had just become a subscriber to KSKA in Anchorage. For signing up, I was given a transistor radio with earphones. It was small and lightweight, and I could hang it from the ceiling of my snow cave. I was very fond of a program called “Radio Reader” and got reception in the snow cave because I was so high on the mountain. Another handy thing about listening to public radio was hearing sister stations from around the state give weather reports. This gave me access to weather news: telling me if a storm was blowing in from the east or the west, if it was minus-fifty where I was, and how cold it was somewhere else. It made me feel as if I was in harmony with the rest of the state. If it was cold and stormy everywhere, it was actually a psychological boost because it meant it was not just me feeling miserable. I could also figure out, based on the wind reports, whether or not it might soon be reasonable to move up. That little radio was quite precious to me on the trip.
The day I wanted to go to the summit, the weather report seemed OK. I made it to the top on March 7, but I didn’t stick around very long. I was there about three minutes and snapped two pictures. The first was of the Japanese flag I brought in homage to Naomi. The flag photo went to Jim Wickwire, the first American to summit the second tallest mountain in the world, K-2. He was a good friend of Naomi’s and, when Wickwire traveled to Japan for a talk, he showed the flag photo to Naomi’s wife. I got a nice reply from her and a copy of a book about Naomi’s life. The other photo was a joke picture for the Anchorage singer-showman Mr. Whitekeys who always cracked wise about Spam. I took a picture of a Spam can on the summit and he used it in his show.
In all, I spent twenty-nine days on the mountain. Lowell flew me off the Kahiltna Glacier into Anchorage, and I had a marvelous reunion with family and friends. It was good to be with people again. A solo winter climb is a lonely experience, and I had long before determined I was a social person.
After all of my jobs in extreme weather places, climbing the coldest of mountains like Denali and Mount Everest, everybody believes I have a fabulous cold tolerance. Actually, I hate being cold. I’m a big baby, really, and I do not like cold toes. I am not innately in tune with the cold; I have to think about it. I have to consciously make decisions that keep me warm, or, if that fails, to plan for rapid re-warming.
The trick is to learn how not to be cold in tough conditions. Being underground is the number one technique for staying warm. The Eskimos do it. They understand the insulating qualities of snow. You want to get off the surface and out of the moving air. Convection and conduction can be hypothermia’s best friend.
There was quite a hullabaloo when I returned to Anchorage. People were happy to see me, glad that I did not disappear or die on the mountain. Then they celebrated the achievement, treating me as a hero. These were Alaskans who love the mountain, and they understood better than most the hardships that might be faced in winter on this gigantic, ice-shrouded rock. It was a grand welcome back to civilization.