Denali Climb 1997 Work Sucks Expedition

Both Cortland and Bruce were trying to get a spot on a trip organized by a Greg Slayden who worked at Marmot in Bellevue Washington. Greg formed his team but did not choose Cortland or Bruce. Greg gave Bruce Cortlands phone number. Bruce and Cortland had names and numbers of others who wanted to climb the mountain. Everyone decided to meet together in Seattle. Just before the meeting, Bruce called the Federal Way REI looking for some gear when I answered the phone. Bruce said he was planning a trip to Denali and I asked if there was room for me. At the meeting in Seattle that night, there were around 8 or 9 of us. It was there that Cortland met Bruce and me. Over the next 2 weeks, a few of the interested party dropped out, one decided to go with a guide, and another wanted to do a harder route. We ended up in 2 groups. Our group was Cortland, his friend River (who was climbing in Mexico), Bruce, and me. Our team met every other week to plan and we did several practice weekends at places such as Rainier and Hurricane Ridge. The irony was that when we arrived in Talkeetna, the party that rejected Cortland and Bruce was there. They only made it 9 days up to the 9,700 camp before quitting.

Getting to Denali Base Camp

We flew from Sea-Tac to Anchorage where we met Bruce who had driven the Alaska Highway up to Anchorage. We loaded our gear in his truck then looked for an all night pizza shop, being 1 a.m. in the morning. After this, we drove to Talkeetna and to our flight service at the airstrip. We spent the rest of the night in an airplane hanger among many other climbers.

(Basecamp Elevation: 7,200 feet)

1997 "Work Sucks" Expedition Members:

Eric Willhite: 22 years old, working for R.E.I.
Cortland Shafer: 31 years old, practicing law.
River Joyner: 27 years old, doing pizza delivery
Bruce Kittridge: 40 years old, retired from the Navy

This is my journal. Understand that I wrote under difficult circumstances at the moment and if my climbing companions read this, please take no offence (in retrospect, our success is due to a slow ascent). Upon ever further retrospect 30 years later, they were some of the best companions I could have possibly had. Everything has been written on this website as wrote originally with the exception of a few sentences that made no sense or needed clarification.

Our team t-shirt with this on the back.

Coming into basecamp with Mt. Foraker clearing up.

Loading one of the airplanes.

In the airplane hanger getting gear all together.

Map gives a rough idea where the camps are along the route.

As we flew into basecamp, you could see the snow trail and some climbers heading up the Kahiltna Glacier toward Kahiltna Pass.

The views out of Talkeetna.

Foraker in the clouds.