ABOUT THE BOOK

Cycling the length of the Americas is not a unique achievement. It’s a long way, of course (13,000 miles). It also presents a variety of dangers, from bears in the far north, and the wild unpredictability of Central America, to deserts and unrelenting wind in the south.

What no one has ever done before is to pedal this longest mountain range on the planet, solo and unsupported, as well as summiting North and South America’s highest peaks – in the same climbing season. Mount McKinley, otherwise known as Denali: 20,320 feet, technical, extremely cold, very dangerous. Aconcagua: the highest peak outside Asia. Tough at the best of times. Even harder after eight punishing months on the road.

In The Man Who Cycled the Americas, Mark Beaumont tells the story of his second record-breaking endurance adventure. Full of his trademark charm, warmth and fascination with seeing the world at the pace of a bicycle, it is a testament to his love of a challenge and a thrilling trip through the diverse cultures of the Americas.

Acknowledgements

When I wrote the acknowledgements for my first book, The Man Who Cycled the World, I didn’t know if it would be my only chance to write down such thanks for a lifetime of help and friendship. So I thanked everyone, and rightly so! Second time round I thought I could be more concise, but this section has once again run to an impressive tally of names. Expeditions like mine don’t happen without a great wealth of support and kindness. Reading these few pages will give you a better understanding of the depth of logistics involved.

I would like to give first thanks and to dedicate this book to David Peat, a great friend. David was the man who first believed in my ability to bring expeditions to screen, introduced me to the BBC and has been my constant mentor. We have shared great adventures.

If you have followed my expeditions from the start you will know of the great family team that I have with my mum, Una. She has supported me since I first pedalled across Scotland at the age of twelve, and continues to be my number-one supporter and adviser. This is more than a full-time job and I couldn’t do what I do without her – thank you, Mum!

Individual and huge thanks also go to Nicci Kitchin who has given me endless support, both through the expedition and writing the book. Her brilliant patience and good humour during my long absence and long hours of work have been so important. The writing took about five months and in many ways felt like an expedition in itself!

I think I write the way I speak, and it takes a hard-working team to check and shape that lengthy manuscript into the book you are now reading. I am pleased that they changed remarkably little, but the devil is in the detail and it is a vital process. Thanks to Giles Elliott, my editor, Mark Stanford (Stan), my agent from Jenny Brown Associates, Daniel Balado-Lopez, Madeline Toy (Mads), Phil Lord and Nick Avery. Congratulations also to Mads for winning Best Publicity Campaign at the National Sporting Club’s Book of the Year Awards for The Man Who Cycled the World.

This expedition was a BBC project shown afterwards as a three-part series, as well as broadcast during the journey across radio, TV and online, including at www.bbc.co.uk/cyclingtheamericas. It was the first time such a long, mainly solo journey had been shared across so many BBC platforms. Special thanks to my production team of Andrea Miller, Neil McDonald, David Peat, Tony Nellany, Nick Schoolingin-Jordan, Jenni Shaw, Dominique Middleton, Graham Gillies, Craig Frew, Shona Kyle, Michelle Knight, Wendy-Ann Dunsmuir, David Devenney, Adam Spencer, Lesley Smith, Eileen Maguire, Therese Lynch and Jonathan Seal. Further essential input and support came from Dave Chalmers, John Carmichael, Keith Wood, Matt Barret, Jim Gough, Nick Roxburgh, Craig Summers, Iain McVie, Claire O’Neill, Anne Heining and Bill Paterson. For the great coverage from BBC Radio 1 thanks to Greg James, Neil Sloan and Piers Bradford. At BBC Radio Scotland thanks to Fred MacAulay as well as Lindsay Gillies, not just for their regular updates but also for creating a brilliant series of radio documentaries afterwards. The BBC Radio Scotland Newsdrive team and the BBC TV Reporting Scotland team also gave very generous coverage to the expedition.

Names that may be familiar from the book are the escorts who met me in Mexico and Central America. Many thanks for the support from Julian Cardona, Jose Avilez, Roberto Zavala, Julian Rolando Ruiz and Jose Soto Rivera. To arrange these and many more logistics took BBC fixers and local contacts, including Lara Rodriguez Warmington, Gregg Koenigsberger, Marthmaria Morales, Brian Bonilla, Mario Carmona, Dan Collyns, Gabriel Padilla and Macarena Gagliardi. My special thanks also to Claudio Flores for his help throughout the Spanish-speaking world.

I have worked with my personal trainer, Craig Ali (www.totalhealth.uk.com) for a number of years and can always rely on his expertise and friendship. Val Vannet, my geography teacher from school days, gave considerable help with route planning. Bruce Murray (www.bcgwebdesign.co.uk) has always built and maintained my website. Jim Kerr in Chamonix taught me the essential skills to climb Denali and Aconcagua. Steve Cook and the team from AKA Training & Consultancy took me through the excellent Surviving Hostile Environments training course. Thanks to you all.

Social media has now connected many long distance cyclists and adventurers, and I am amazed by how many like-minded people I have come to know in recent years. Many of them have contributed to my Americas journey and I am very grateful for their time and enthusiasm. If you don’t already know these names I would recommend looking up the expeditions of Scott Napier, Alastair Humphreys (www.alastairhumphreys.com), Dominic Gill (www.takeaseat.org), James Hooper (www.james-hooper.com) and Tom Kevill-Davies (www.thehungrycyclist.com). Thanks also for the valuable input from Oli Bray and Simon Jenkins.

In nearly nine months, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, I met so many interesting and kind people. I can’t mention many, but would like to thank especially Melis and Joey Coady for their great leadership, and Johann Van Zyl for his friendship on Denali. My best friends from the road were undoubtedly Mike and Alanna Clear (www.goingthedistance.org.uk) apart from the fact that I met them five times between America and Argentina, they also helped me out hugely and were great fun. The journey from Central to South America wouldn’t have been possible without the support from Beverley Waring, Kenneth Ross, John Fitzsimmons of Star Reefers and the owners of the Crown Opal at Nky Reefers. I was the first passenger that the Crown Opal crew had ever welcomed aboard, so many thanks to Captain Evseev and his men for looking after me. On Aconcagua, Damian Benegas and Sebastian Ezcurra formed the best team I have climbed with. They were inspiringly positive and fun to be with. Thanks also to Harry Kikstra (www.exposedplanet.com) for his advice, Fernando Grajales for logistical support, Martin from Mendoza, Oksana Chekulaeva and Alice Dixon.

Other friends from the road who I would like to mention and thank are the British Embassy throughout North, Central and South America, Alan Klerc (www.velomech.net), Mona Welborn, Allan and Pat Poertner and Heidi (www.solfun.com), Jack Brennan (www.gilahikeandbike.com), Steven Walker and family, Xavier Romero, Angelino Abad Flores and family, Miguel and Francisco Rendon (www.escoffee.com), Alan Paredes Arce, Percy from Arequipa, Sarah Green and Stewart Starrs from Pisco (www.piscosinfronteras.org) and Liz and Phil Bingham (www.pedallingnorth.com).

So far I have managed ‘to thank’ in fairly ordered groups, but I’m now left with a number of equally deserving people who have less in common, but who are just as deserving of a mention! Firstly, my family has always been there for me, especially my sisters, Heather and Hannah. It was brilliant to see Heather in Alaska and for us to share a part of the journey. Dad, Granny and Grandpa are keen supporters as well and I am very grateful for their encouragement. David Fox Pitt (www.wildfoxevents.com) was hugely important at the start of my career and continues to be on hand to help whenever needed. Rob Pendleton and the team from LDC (www.ldc.co.uk) have been equally supportive and it has been a great pleasure to share my journey over the last four years with them. Thanks also for the support from Brendan Keller, Jim Munroe, Trish Peat, Laura Turner, Tim O’Donovan, Andy Barlow, and Kev and Harry at Footprints (www.footprintsglasgow.com), Brian Tinsley at Yellow Ltd (www.yellowIimited.com), Chris Tiso at Tiso’s (www.tiso.com), Pieter Jan Rijpstra at KOGA (www.koga-signature.com), Martin Kirton at Lyon Equipment (www.lyon-outdoor.co.uk) and Michael Atkinson at High Five (www.highfive.co.uk).

My friends have always supported my expeditions, albeit some with perplexed enthusiasm! You all know who you are and my great thanks for the wonderful send-off party and regular messages of support.

As this expedition went on, the online following grew until the army of support on Twitter, Facebook and the website felt like a virtual peloton. I may have been out there on my own, but I never felt alone with the quite amazing level of feedback, questions and constant enthusiasm. Thanks to everyone who was a part of this. I can’t thank you all, but I’d like to mention in particular Stuart Fairley, one of the most dedicated supporters. I was thrilled to fly back into Edinburgh Airport and see him there to shake my hand.

To everyone who I met on the road and everyone who has been involved in this journey, I hope you remember it fondly. I certainly do.

Also by Mark Beaumont

The Man Who Cycled the World

For more information on Mark Beaumont and his books, see his website at www.markbeaumontonline.com

1

My personal motivations are tricky to pin down, but I feel it’s important to try to explain what I was about to attempt. While publicly I may be regarded as a cyclist, full stop, my main idea has always been to find journeys that haven’t been tried or certainly haven’t been documented. Great endurance journeys give us a unique chance to explore the world and to learn about ourselves. So I have no interest in racing around the world again, and when I did the bike was simply the best choice of transport rather than a late bid on my part to become an elite cyclist. I hope this sentiment makes some sense, as it will shape the way you read this book and help you see the journey the same way I did.

More people have cycled down (or up) the Americas than have cycled around the world, and the attraction is fairly obvious. It’s the ultimate top-to-toe journey that this world offers, a John O’Groats to Land’s End on a much bigger scale. If you ignore the formidable, roadless Darien Gap between Central and South America, the Americas can be seen as the longest unbroken land journey on planet Earth.

I had always looked longingly at this part of the world on the wall chart, but I’d never felt any desire to race it, especially after racing around the world. This would have felt like more of the same, and in terms of a documentary might well be seen as less of the same; it was certainly shorter. My interest lay in the formidable mountainous spine that joins the northern, central and southern parts of the Americas. Mountains were one of the main features to avoid on the world ride as they rarely provide the fastest route; here was a chance to create a journey that followed the longest mountain ridge on earth – the American Cordillera. And as I now had the opportunity to undertake a journey down the world’s longest mountain ranges, I decided it would be appropriate to crown this at either end with the summits of the highest peaks in North and South America. The more I considered this, the more it seemed like the perfect mountain journey. Maybe not the simplest to explain, but essentially a very pure journey.

Within the climbing world, the Seven Summits – climbing the highest peak in each of the seven continents – has in recent decades become a popular amateur ambition. It’s mainly a pastime for the very few rich, free and fit enough to be able to commit to such a huge task. While elite mountaineers sometimes frown at taking the easiest route on any mountain just to be able to reach the top, avoiding the skill and endurance necessary for new and more technical routes, the Seven Summits is not to be underestimated. High-altitude climbing is always unpredictable, unforgiving and, for any living being, unnatural.

The two peaks I was intending to climb are the second and third highest of the Seven Summits, after Mount Everest, which at 29,035ft (8,850m) is well known as the king of mountains: Aconcagua (22,841ft/6,962m) in Argentina and Denali (20,320ft/6,194m) in Alaska. Due to the jetstream at altitude, the daylight hours and other seasonal effects, each mountain has a different and limited climbing season. Winter ascents have been attempted on each mountain but this is the realm of the very experienced, and sometimes the foolhardy. The fact that I was to travel north to south was decided for me: the BBC wished me to start as soon as possible and I was reluctant to be climbing in or cycling through either Alaska’s or Patagonia’s winter. So although cycling the Americas may not ever have been planned as any kind of world record attempt, there was time pressure. I needed to climb Denali around June time and Aconcagua in January 2010, and between the two mountains lay thirteen countries and 11,000 miles (17,700km) of mountainous cycling.

My early enthusiasm for the expedition overlooked two glaring facts. By the time I made it back to Paris at the end of the world cycle I had taken eighty-one days off the old world record, but just eight hours off my personal target of 195 days. After all the trials and delays over 18,296 miles through eighteen countries, this was an unlikely small margin. And in the days after finishing I soon found that I had physically paid the price for such specific endurance. The truth was that I had barely walked anywhere for half a year and I suffered from pains in my lower back and shins when walking, as well as discovering that my back had rounded off considerably. With the help of hydrotherapy, massage, physio and gentle cross-training I managed to normalize my fitness over the following months, but it had come as a shock how maladjusted my body had become.

Sixteen months later, just before setting out for Alaska, I realized that this all-round endurance fitness would be one of the attempt’s greatest challenges. This time round I needed to climb for weeks in Alaska, then spend half a year on the bike before hopping off and going straight back into a climb of the western hemisphere’s highest peak. This would be a far greater test of my physical and mental stamina than anything before.

I was not much of a climber, either. The scale of my new project hit me at Seattle airport as I studied a vast picture of Mount Rainier on the wall, the highest mountain in Washington State (and also of the mainland forty-eight states). It looked huge, beautiful and intimidating. I examined it over a cappuccino, trying to bury my concerns as I realized that many climbers used Rainier as a warm-up for where I was going. I hadn’t even climbed Ben Nevis. My five-day crash course on mountain skills in Chamonix was the first time I had ever felt the effects of altitude, albeit at only 3,500m (11,500ft), and the first time I had done any ice climbing.

Aboard the flight from Seattle to Anchorage, I spent much of the time staring out of the window at the seemingly endless peaks, glaciers and snowfields of the Rocky Mountains. The rest of the flight was spent marvelling at Alaskan Airways’ unique take on luxury travel. The seats were extraordinarily large. I am 6ft 3in and I wallowed in luxury. On the carpeted walls of the plane were dated paintings of the wilds of Alaska. I had never really seen either carpeted walls or paintings on planes before, and it gave the impression that I was not just flying five hours north but also three decades back in time.

Adventure and Alaska are synonymous to all. Even to live and work in ‘The Last Frontier’ was in my imagination a pretty wild experience. Then again, what did I know, apart from what I’d picked up from White Fang and Into the Wild? Still, it seemed a wonderful place to start any expedition.

On the morning of Friday 29 May 2009, after briefly meeting a small hustle of Alaskan TV and newspaper reporters in downtown Anchorage, I headed out of the suburbs to find a suitably iconic official starting point. But Anchorage is like any other US grid town and doesn’t particularly reflect the wilderness of the north or the setting I’d imagined leaving from. I was surprised by the gated communities and incredible mansions that jostled for a Pacific view – not at all matching my mind’s-eye image of the place. I had hoped to start on a beach, just like I hoped to finish on a beach near Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. However, the only piece of semi-wilderness I could find without travelling too far in the wrong direction was about 300 metres above the water’s edge on steep grassy cliffs.

It was also a very grey day, and while I could see over the water for miles, a thick bank of cloud started at a few hundred feet and shrouded the entire coastal range. David Peat was with me, and these inclement conditions posed more of a problem for him than for me. It was near-perfect cool cycling weather, but David was with me for just four or five days to try to capture the essential opening sequences for the documentary series. And while I stood on the edge of the grassy cliff trying to describe the mountainous view you couldn’t see behind me, if you had swung the camera round you would have seen a group of increasingly impatient motocross bikers whom we had asked to cut their engines so we could film for a few minutes.

I wouldn’t have wanted to miss leaving from the Pacific, but it felt like a bit of a false start. The pedal up from the coast to the Denali National Park was the only time I planned on going north, and my focus the entire way was on the climb ahead. Also, although fit, I felt cumbersome. I had spent the previous six weeks feeding up as much as I could, consuming a number of liquid meals a day between my regular big diet, as I was keen to start what promised to be a gruelling expedition with weight to lose. The consequence of now being heavier was that I didn’t feel completely comfortable on the bike.

Talkeetna lies 130 miles (210km) north of Anchorage, and is a small town at the end of a road in the foothills of the Alaskan Range. Officially it has about eight hundred inhabitants, but how anyone can carry out an accurate census in the wild forests of Alaska where some people just don’t want to be found is a mystery to me. In 1919, the year when the town was established, you could get change from $15 for a town centre plot. Now it’s a summer mecca for tour buses, fishermen and climbers. Apart from passing Sarah Palin’s estate entrance there hadn’t been a lot on the road north so I was surprised to pedal into such a hive of activity. A dozen short and mainly unpaved streets make up Talkeetna, whose airport is almost as big as the town itself. Along the main street lies the ‘historic’ heart with Nagley’s Store, the Fairview Inn and the West Buttress pub. Scattered in the wooded surroundings were all shapes and sizes of house, all looking like they were built out of the trees that once stood on the same land, often with a big truck parked outside.

I had a few days to meet my team and prepare for the climb, but I also wanted to explore this amazing little town. The entrance to Denali National Park lies a good 100 miles north, on a different road, but for the majority of tourists content with taking a picture from afar, and maybe a sightseeing flight, Talkeetna offers one of the best views of the park’s namesake, the highest peak in North America. As I stopped my bike outside Nagley’s and looked around, I could see that most people were either wiry climbers or plump tourists, and it was amusingly obvious that each group acted like the other wasn’t there.

There was another difference between them. The word ‘Denali’ is a native Athabascan word for ‘The High One’. In 1896 a gold prospector renamed it Mount McKinley after William McKinley, a US presidential candidate of the time, and ever since there has been a fairly heated debate about the correct name. I found that climbers and Alaskans called it Denali whereas other tourists usually referred to it as Mount McKinley.

Denali is also often talked about as one of the coldest mountains in the world, among many other endearing properties. Its summit may stand a long way shy of Mount Everest’s and other great Himalayan peaks, but it actually has a longer ascent, due to how low you have to start, which in turn is dictated by a no-landing zone within Denali National Park. In fact, it’s the longest ascent of any of the Seven Summits. What is more, whereas in the Himalayas climbers use sherpas, and in the Andes they use mules, in Alaska you and your team are on your own in terms of carrying enough supplies to last up to a month in a polar climate.

Denali’s unique character is mainly due to its northerly latitude. At 63°N it lies about 200 miles (320km) from the Arctic Circle. This is why it is so glaciated, so cold, has such a short climbing season and, less predictably, more extreme altitude effects. Put simply, the barometric pressure at more northerly latitudes affects acclimatization, so climbers will tend to suffer from the effects of altitude more on Denali than at the same altitude on a mountain nearer the equator. Oddly, this meant that while Aconcagua, my second climb, would be 2,519ft higher, the effects of altitude on both summits, assuming the same conditions, were likely to be similar. This surprising effect is caused by the troposphere (the lowest portion and 75 per cent of the entire atmosphere) being thinner at the poles – about 4 miles thick compared to 12 miles in the tropical regions.

I felt more like a tourist than a climber that first day in Talkeetna, but my thoughts were consumed by where I was about to go. Perhaps luckily, the cloud remained low so I couldn’t see the mountain.

By the time I reached Talkeetna, on 31 May 2009, my body clock had just about adjusted to being nine hours behind UK time. The next day I had an eight a.m. till six p.m. induction and skills course with my new team. Having almost always been on solo expeditions, meeting the team was a moment I was a bit apprehensive about. And I had reason to be concerned.

The Alaska Mountaineering School was leading the expedition and putting together the six-strong team plus two guides. When I read their guidelines and prerequisites, I realized that they had made a serious exception allowing me to join. ‘Denali requires a significant amount of prior climbing experience,’ it said, ‘and applicants should have climbed mountaineering routes that require roped glacier travel and winter snow camping. The mountain is too severe to be learning these skills for the first time.’

Also, a few weeks earlier AMS had sent out an email introducing Mike, Johann, Peggy, Hiroko and Denis to me. After a few days with no replies from my new teammates I imagined them as a hardy group of mountain characters, people of few words and deep contemplation who would see straight through my inexperience. So I felt it right to instigate a dialogue and I introduced myself, explaining that I would be keeping a video diary of the climb as part of a BBC series. A few more days passed, and I received just one reply, from Johann. To my great relief it was friendly and enthusiastic. Then came a call from AMS to say that they were in the middle of some serious damage control. One member had freaked out about my filming plans and was threatening to pull out of the team. This came as a shock as I had been told that everyone was in the loop and understood that the filming needn’t involve them unless they particularly wanted it to. However, with no response at all from the other four, I had left for Alaska with the impression that I would be starting the expedition both out of my depth and deeply out of favour.

For these reasons I asked David to leave me to it as I made my introductions, and the cameras were kept well out of sight to begin with. Thankfully, most of my fears were unfounded. The team, diverse in age, background and character, seemed to gel well. As the day went on I also realized we all had vastly different levels of experience. It was like a first day at school: I could see that my own trepidation was matched, if not exceeded, by that of some of the others.

Mike, a doctor from America, was the oldest in the group. He had spent years ticking off the highest peak in each US state. With forty-nine in the bag, this was his ultimate and toughest mountain yet. Denis was from Quebec. It was unclear what he did for a living or had ever done in terms of climbing, mainly as his English wasn’t great. This surprised and concerned me: clear communication would be of huge importance during the climb. Hiroko was a tall but slightly built lady from Japan who smiled constantly and performed a very slight bow every time she laughed or answered a question. I wondered if she would be strong enough to carry and pull 80lb of gear. Peggy was from Switzerland. As soon as I’d parked my bike and walked up to the group I’d read her body language. She was short, well built, with long plaited blonde hair. Her greeting was civil enough but I sensed a slight frostiness, and she spent most of the day watching me quietly. I reflected thankfully on my last-hour decision not to walk in for our first meeting with a camera behind my shoulder. It would have added unnecessary fuel to this unnecessary fire. I didn’t meet Johann, my only known associate, until the following morning.

During the day a number of guides came in to meet us, each more bearded and wilder than the last. These were the sort of men I had imagined climbing with, as opposed to our group of what I considered to be slightly unlikely suspects.

The key lessons started with how to rope up as a team of four (we would be two groups of three with a guide each). This entailed running a 50-metre rope through both a waist and chest harness while also securing a sled. Next we mocked an exercise in moving up a section of fixed line rope. In just over a week we would be moving up to 16,000ft on a headwall of ice at 50 degrees using a fixed line for running protection. However, on the flat woodland floor, dressed in a T-shirt, it was hard to relate the skills as we ran our ‘ascender’ gear between sections of climbing rope tied to trees.

The last major skill to learn, and the one we hoped never to need, was how to survive a crevasse fall. Apart from a few ridgeline sections, the entire 16-mile climb on Denali is on glaciers – all moving, all fractured, melting and freezing, and all constantly unpredictable. Hanging from the roof of a barn, it was painfully slow and tiring work to ‘prusik’ our way up a hanging rope, which involved making a foot loop and handhold on the rope and transferring weight from one to another using knots that slide when unweighted but grip when pulled. As I observed the level of strength and dexterity in the group, I struggled to imagine us doing this confidently in full puffy down gear with big mitts in minus 20-degree conditions. Everyone had more climbing experience than I did, but it was clear that Denali required specific polar skills none of us had, and great endurance. I was confident that I would be physically stronger than most of the group members, so while I couldn’t fall back on experience, I should be able to hold my own.

The following day we were due to fly out to our starting point, and over breakfast I met Johann, our final member. Originally from South Africa, Johann lived in California and had climbed a number of high peaks including Aconcagua. In his late thirties, he was very outgoing and immediately likeable. I could see he would be an important link in keeping the team together.

This was the day. You could feel the nervous energy of the team as we laid out and repacked our gear for the last time.

2

Unlike the wild mountain men I had met the day before, our guides were introduced as the young husband and wife team of Melis and Joey. Melis, our lead guide, was now the new smallest member of our team, and if it hadn’t been for the obvious respect she commanded among the other guides, I might have thought we’d got the short straw. To answer any doubts, she pointed out that being big and strong wasn’t the key to a successful climb.

Because of cameras, spare batteries and solar panels, I already had a weight handicap over the other team members. In addition, being six foot three means that everything from your sleeping-bag to your underwear is that bit bigger. A bit of extra material per item doesn’t sound like much, but the grams add up, and my most pressing task at this time was trying to cut weight. Starting off with a pile of absolute essentials, I managed to get rid of another few kilos until I was under the 80lb (36kg) limit, but still with the heaviest pack.

The small bush planes that populated the airfield in Talkeetna split their time between sightseeing flights and acting as a taxi service for climbers, taking off on their wheels then landing on their skids on the ice. Denali has been climbed from Talkeetna itself, but this involves about ten days’ hiking through forests, fording rivers and climbing lower glaciers before getting anywhere near the mountain. Over 99 per cent of people who have attempted and ever will attempt Denali fly to the edge of the Denali National Park, the furthest point planes are allowed to land, from where it is still the longest climb on earth.

Overheating in heavy double-shelled climbing boots and thermal layers, we piled out of the van that had taken us and our bags from AMS to the airfield. From there, with the help of a quad bike and trailer we shifted our 480lb of kit – enough to survive life in the freezer for up to a month – nearer to the planes. We were ready early for our scheduled five p.m. flight, and we sat about chatting in the sunshine outside the log cabin that was the airfield HQ waiting for news of conditions on the mountain, which were worsening despite it being a warm summer’s day in Talkeetna. It had been a frantic but enjoyable day. All my initial fears had been put into perspective by the realization that we really were all in the same boat. The nervous anticipation of all was clear. There would be no gradual introduction to gain our bearings. We would soon be dropped in a sterile, glaciated world and left to our devices.

After a long wait, Melis rejoined us and broke the news: there would be no flying today. I was surprised to feel slightly relieved. One more night in a warm bed, one more shower. We bundled back into the van and returned to base, talking mainly about how we would find a hotel booking at this late hour.

As we pulled up and started unloading the bags, Harry, one of the lead guides, came sprinting out. ‘That’s the air taxi on the phone. Change of plan. They can take you if you hurry.’ No one celebrated. I could see I hadn’t been the only one who was quietly relieved about the delay, although there would have been considerable loss of face to admit to it.

It was a pretty bumpy ride inside that small prop plane. The huge pile of gear was kept in place with cargo mesh and we were all buckled in, earmuffs on. It had felt more like stepping into an old car than a plane, with its poorly sealed doors and tattered upholstery. For the first half-hour we swept low over a sea of forest and I stared down in awe at some remote huts, serious miles from anywhere, some with their own small airstrip that left a scar in the greenery. After crossing a few meltwater rivers we soared high across the first of the glaciers. Most looked completely impassable, with frantic crumple and fracture lines running their length and breadth. They were as stunning as they were intimidating. Higher still we crossed very close to a ridgeline the sight of which would have been exhilarating on its own without the small plane repeatedly falling into pockets of lesser air pressure before stabilizing with a shudder. It motored on determinedly, sounding and feeling like an unsilenced Land Rover going where no vehicle had gone before.

The lower Kahiltna glacier landing area is at about 7,200ft (2,200m). It’s actually on a small spur glacier off to the side, and I say ‘about’ 7,200ft because these lower glaciers melt every year as the summer progresses and the planes are forced to land higher and higher up the spur to find firm ice, instead of slush. Landing higher is not as helpful as it may sound, as the only route is to descend to the main glacier before the real climbing up can begin. Luckily it had been a cold year so far, so we landed relatively low on ‘Heartbreak Hill’ and cleared the planes for a quick take-off. It was getting late.

I could see that time would seem different here. For one thing, it never got dark in June, and it was obvious that we would be climbing at odd times of the day to minimize the chances of falling through weak snow bridges. I was surprised to find the glacier very bumpy and rough, giving excellent grip even without crampons on. However, the freeze/thaw action at this altitude had also compacted the top layer to the hardness of a brick. It took some serious shovelling to bury the snow parachutes, which took the place of the traditional pegs that would be used on greener camp spots. That done, we bedded down for the night.

Four hours later, at three a.m., I woke up. The tents were soon down and just after five we were off. It was light but the sun wasn’t yet on us and it was pretty cold. Compared to the day before, down the valley, it was very cold, but on the grand scale of coldness it was only relatively cold. Denali is a mountain where the Fahrenheit and Celsius ranges often meet at night, at around minus 40.

Forget fancy polar fibreglass enclosed sleds, ours were big rectangular plastic sledges, the sort kids use, the perfect size to carry a large duffel bag. The sled and my 80-litre rucksack together was about 80lb of gear. It was a weight that would take some getting used to, as would the technique of hauling it. As we crunched out of camp, snowshoes flapping rhythmically like massive flip-flops, each of us was kicked in the heels by our sleds as they tried to overtake us. It took the coordinated pace of all four in each team to keep the sleds from racing freely on downwards and from flipping over on camber slopes.

Once on the body of the mountain, we would be using the standard mountaineering technique of carry gear high, then sleep low. This would allow us to split the weight of our gear on tougher parts of the climb while also helping us acclimatize by being more active while spending time at each altitude level. If all went to plan then today and summit day would be the only parts of the climb when we wouldn’t travel twice.

At five and a half miles, it was the longest day on the climb, and by far the heaviest while we had everything with us. Later on we would be storing unneeded gear in snow caches, to be collected on our return. But covering a third of our total climb distance on day one was a bit of a false victory as it was altitude gain which counted up here. Camp two was at 7,870ft (2,400m), just a few hundred metres higher than where we’d started, and from this point the climbing really would begin. It would be quite a few days until, having crossed Kahiltna Pass, we were actually on Denali. This commute from the outskirts of Denali Park was also the access route for any other number of climbs.

By ten a.m. it was insanely hot. I had been warned that at low altitude, walking through this ultra-reflective world was tough, but I hadn’t imagined being stripped down to a base layer, dripping with sweat under a baseball cap and glacier-rated sunglasses. Forget frostbite, the greatest evil for climbers low on the mountain is often heatstroke and sunburn. Time really did slow down as we wove our way around vast open crevasses on an indirect course up the very wide valley. We had to take a pace for the whole team, but I would have loved to up the ante and get it over and done with a bit faster. Progress was painfully slow, and after a while the dull ache in my shoulders and back was too great for me to be distracted by the breathtaking summit views left and right. I simply walked along staring at my snowshoes, trying not to trip on the rope whenever the person in front slowed momentarily.

By two p.m. we had the tents up. Despite the weight limitations, Johann, Mike and I had the luxury of a four-man tent between three. Denis was sharing with Hiroko and Peggy while Melis and Joey had their own smaller tent. It didn’t take long for the tents to get even hotter inside than it was outside, so we set about building our kitchen tent. This needed to be a 10-foot-wide circular hole in the ground, about 5ft deep, with bench seats cut in the sides, and some snow steps down into it. Once dug, a long central pole was covered with a pointed section of parachute fabric and weighed down at ground level with snow on all sides. It was hot work, but it made for a surprisingly large and cool snow bunker. The fact it was mainly underground meant it was a key skill to learn for higher up where the winds would flatten a similar-sized above-ground structure, not to mention saving us from carrying the extra materials such a structure would have needed.

The first job had been to carefully stake the whole area for crevasses and ‘wand’ the edge of camp with thin bamboo poles. After the tents were put up, with every conceivable guy rope anchored, basking in T-shirts we set about upturning our sledges and securing all unused gear, storm-bounding the whole camp. Many of these routines seemed rather pedantic, but Melis made it clear that most of these tasks needed to be second nature by the time we got higher up, where conditions often change so quickly there is no time to react.

From camp we had a clear and quite staggering view of the summit over 13,000ft (nearly 4,000m) above us. Despite the calm at camp and the clear view, I could see spindrift whipping off the top. Another impossible summit day. It would be the last time we saw the top before our own summit bid, as we would soon be underneath the mountain on its vast flanks.