Pictorial Trip Report

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Heading down towards Denali Pass. 
Here's Scott on the morning after summit day. 
Me on the morning after summit day. 

The next morning we packed up camp and left at 1:15pm to see how far we could descend. We had food and gear caches at 14,200, 11,000, and 7000'.  Our plan was to pick up each cache, eat as much as we could, take a break, then continue to the next cache.  If possible we'd go all 15 miles to the airstrip. Since it was summer, we were blessed with 24 hour daylight, so nightfall wouldn't be a problem, only fatigue. 

On descending the headwall into basin camp the slope was very steep, it was very warm for all the clothes we were wearing, and the soles of my feet were extremely sore. 
We descended to 14,200, picked up our cache, took a break, checked our O2 saturation, which was lower than on the way up, and ate.  I learned that dirty socks are like dirty bike shorts.  They cause pain.  A change of socks fixed the sore feet problem. Here our snow wall is showing its age. 
The two guys in red dropped a sled into a crevasse.  While they fished the sled out, their stove fell in beyond retrieval.  They offered to purchase my stove which is ready for replacement but Scott sold them his instead. 
Descending from 14,200 through Windy Corner to 11,000'.  I pulled the ornery sled which had intentions of its own. 
Scenery to the north while descending. 
At 11,000' we stopped to dig our largest cache and eat as much as we could.  It was quite warm here. Steve and Brian stopped by on their descent and helped us lighten our load.  Then it started snowing, so we picked up and moved on. Steve and Brian had skiis, so they were gone in a flash. 
While heading down from 11,000 we got bored, and decided to try more efficient methods of descent involving our sleds. Shortly after this picture we began experimenting.  Straddling the backpack on top of the gear on the sled was like riding a one legged horse -- I was always falling over, but still worth trying to perfect.  At one point we got up good speed, but I started veering off to the left while Scott kept going straight.  Not a problem except that we were still roped together.  As we dropped over the next hill the situation became very interesting as there was another team of climbers ascending directly between us.  Fortunately for them my sled fell over just in time and the only casualty was me sumersaulting through the snow.

We finally perfected our technique.  While wearing our packs on our backs, we'd sit on top of the gear on the sled.  With the help of a slope and a lot of good luck we could stay on top of the sled, steer, and not hit any crevasses.  Most of the time we didn't have that much luck, however, and we often ran off course, tumbled over and through the snow with our 50lb packs on our backs, and once even zoomed overtop a crevasse without any warning.  But the fun factor heavily outweighed the foolhardiness factor, and 3000' later, we were at the base of ski hill. 
At the base of Ski Hill we rejoined Steve and Brian at 1:00 am.  They had skiied down the slope we tumble sledded down so they were well ahead of us.  They had some great hot jello and some other snacks out and were packing up their cache when we arrived.  We ate a little, took a break, and the four of us headed out again. Over the next few hours it got quite foggy and dark.  It was too difficult for us to see anything, but Brian and Steve acked like they knew where they were going, so we followed them.  Here we donned our snowshoes since the ground was too flat to sled, and the snow was soft enough to sink in. 
Four hours and 6 miles later, at 5:00 am, we ascended the rise named Heartbreak Hill to reach the airstrip.  It had started raining, so most of our clothes were wet, it was cold, and we were tired.  We pitched our two tents door to door and set up the stoves in the space between them.  Scott dug up the cache we had left there on the way up. We ate.  Due to the crappy weather it was doubtful any planes would be flying that day, but Steve went to Annie's hut and left a note saying we were ready for a fly out just in case.  We sorely needed some naps, but were concerned, because if we weren't ready if and when our plane arrived, the next ready party would get it.  We unanimously decided to nap.  Fortunately from the depths of slumber, I heard (or was it a dream?) Annie's high pitched voice: "IDGSA,  Flatliners, you're flying out in 20 minutes!!". In a panic we rushed to pack all our gear, food, stoves, and tents in 20 minutes, normally a 1 to 1.5 hour task.  We came damned close to making it, and finished up our tenure on the mountain with gear sprints to the plane in plastic boots through calf deep snow.  We made it.  Showers were a half hour away. 
Civilization, or the next best thing -- downtown Talkeetna, Alaska. 
After showering and a couple nights rest at the Talkeetna Air Taxi bunkhouse, I moved my camp to a gravel bar on the Talkeetna river to relax.  I had nothing to do but read 'Into the Wild' by John Krakaur and let my body rebuild.  The view from the front of my tent included the mountain.  And it felt great to see it from a distance where I was relaxed, warm, and a short walk from a hot meal. 

For the next few weeks I had the most voracious appetite of my life, and I was tired all the time.  I couldn't get enough sleep or food.  Luckily after 3 weeks I had gained back the 10 lbs I had lost and my appetites for sleep and food returned to normal. 
Denali from my tent on the gravel bar. 

Weather

We were truly blessed with the weather. While waiting at Talkeetna for our flight onto the glacier, other climbers were returning with horror stories. Their faces were sunburned and peeling off while they told of -40 F in the tent just the previous night. Once we got to the mountain we never recorded temps less than -10 F although on most nights temps would get below 0 F. Winds never got scary, never above 50 mph. One cool thing -- On some mornings when the sun hit the tent it would warm up quickly. One morning I timed it while it rose from 5 to 50 within 20 minutes.

Cooking

One night at 11000' the wind was howling a little, and we couldn't cook but we had plenty of food that didn't need cooking. Later in the trip we cured the cooking in wind problem by cooking in the vestibule. You've read all the stove manufacturer warnings to the effect of 'Don't use inside a tent'. That's great advice for when you're not on a mountain. Two things to be alert to -- Sometimes the flame would hit the nylon when starting the stove, and CO2 accumulation in the tent. There are true stories of people dying from CO2 poisoning, so we kept the tent ventilated a little while cooking in it.