Denali Day 13: Summit Day

We summited today.

I want to start there because everything else in this dispatch is true, but that sentence is the headline. Project Climb Higher is complete. Another world record stands.

But it was a big day, and I want to tell you honestly what it took.

It started with a stove that didn’t want to cooperate. Getting water boiled for breakfast was a fight from the beginning. We started boiling water at 7 AM and it was 10:30 AM before everyone had full water bottles. At this altitude, water boils at a lower temperature, which sounds like it should make things easier. It doesn’t. The cold fights you at every step, even the steps that have nothing to do with climbing.

Once we finally got moving, we hit a bottleneck at the Autobahn, the steep traverse right outside camp, where several teams decided to leave at the same moment we did. Cold, still dark, and now waiting in a line you didn’t expect. Frustrating doesn’t quite cover it. But once we cleared that section, we made a call: skip the break, push ahead of the other teams while we had the opening. One team from Norway, wonderful people, was ahead of us the entire day. We ended up the second team to summit.

Summit pushes are never a straight line. The weather turned windy partway up, which meant layers off, then layers back on, hydrate, snack, repeat. Different people found their strength at different moments, which is exactly how it should work on a team. Nobody carries the whole day alone.

There’s a particular feeling that comes from watching your team push past what their bodies are telling them is the limit, and finding each other on the other side of it. I don’t think you can manufacture that feeling any other way. You have to earn it the hard way, in the pain cave, together.

And we got the summit to ourselves. No crowds, no waiting in line for a photo, just our team, the view, and a few quiet minutes to actually take it in. That kind of stillness at 20,310 feet is rare, and we knew it the moment we had it.

Having Jacob here made this the most meaningful expedition I’ve ever done. Not close. Watching my son stand on that summit with me is something I’ll carry for the rest of my life. I’m so grateful for this record. I’m more grateful for who was standing next to me when I got it.

Tom and Sandro were excellent today, the kind of steady, good-humored presence that makes a hard day gel instead of fracture. Sandro lent Jacob his earbuds at one point so he could listen to techno on a tough stretch. Music does something willpower alone can’t. Everyone up here has their own trick for shutting down the voice that wants you to quit before you’re done. Today, that trick was a beat in his ears.

Round trip, summit to base: about eight and a half hours. Genuinely respectable time. Conditions held for us almost the entire way, a strange little dry spell right when we needed it, and the wind didn’t pick back up until we were already descending. I’m thanking every ancestor I’ve got for that timing.

We’ve got a few days of descent ahead of us before we’re fully off the mountain. And then, honestly, I’m going to take a break from mountains for a while. It’s been a lot lately, in the best and most demanding sense of that phrase. I’m excited to fill my calendar with different kinds of adventures, the kind more people in my life can actually share with me. Extreme mountaineering is incredible, but it narrows the circle of who gets to be there with you. I’m ready to widen that circle again for a while.

Something to think about today:

The summit isn’t actually about the elevation. It’s about who you become reaching for it, and who’s standing next to you when you get there. What’s your version of the summit right now, and who do you want beside you when you reach it?

Thank you for following this entire journey. Project Climb Higher is complete.

This concludes the daily dispatches from the mountain. Descent updates to follow as we make our way down.

Jenn (one proud mama) and team!