Denali West Buttress - 14,000 to summit or 17,000 to summit

For those of you that been to Denali - West Buttress.  From which camp did you approach summit?  14,000 or 17,000 camp?

Can you also share the time it took to get to summit and any other details. 

If it's your first time, I'd recommend doing several significant acclimatization pushes from 14K. First to the 16K ridge, perhaps to Washburn's Thumb to make a cache. Then to 17K a day or so later. Hang out there for a few hours, brew up and descend or continue a bit higher to the Denali Pass. If you feel good with that, recover and shoot for the summit from 14K. I've done that twice and it's taken me approximately 11 hours or so round trip from 14K. Make sure your whole team is on board though. It's a big day. 

If reaching the summit is the biggest goal, stay at 17K. It's very common for teams to take ~12hrs round trip from 17K. It buys you a lot of security and surety, but 17K is not that fun of a place to stay for long periods of time, no doubt. We went super light from 14K, no ropes or big packs, sleeping bags, etc, but we both had tons of experience on Denali and other mountains in Alaska and were confident moving unroped on the Autobahn and gauging the weather and our bodies at altitude. 

Set yourself up for success and do whatever makes the most sense for your abilities, fitness and team dynamics to get to the top and back down safely. A day after we did the 14K round trip, some team from Missouri tried to emulate our schedule and ended up having to cram into someone else's tent (with the owners) at 17K, got serious frost bite and were helivaced out of 14K.

Our team summited from 14 (I got outvoted 2-1).  It will be a 26 hour day.  The best beta I can give you though is to make sure u are past 17 and on the approach to denali pass as early as possible.  The line of teams originating from 17 screwed us over royally and set our team back 2 hours, which inevitably led to us being caught in a low pressure system.  We summited, but it was ugly.    We left at about 6am from 14.  I would leave much earlier.  If u are fast, u can prob reach 17 in under 3 hours.  A line of cruddy guided teams will be formed by 8 AM or earlier.  U need to beat these teams or being stuck on the pass approach can make or break your expedition.  Imagine the hundred people lines on Everest, and that’s what you can expect.  

Tyler Kondelik wrote:

Our team summited from 14 (I got outvoted 2-1).    

no offense, but that's kind of shitty of your partners...

I did from 14, camping at 17 seemed heinous, as well as carrying all the gear from 14 there.

We left early and beat the teams from 17 camp, i did a ski descent which was the main reason we chose 14-summit. Chickened out though on Messner/Orient because of harder snow than expected, skied down phantom headwall instead.

I think I was around a 14 hour round trip at a very leisurely pace, and an hour + break at 17 camp on the way down.

We did 2 acclimatization trips, 1 to Washburns thumb, 1 to Denali pass in the few day before the summit.

Previous experience to that trip:

50+ mount hood summits

5 or 6 Rainier Summits

10+ other various cascade summits

1 Alaska range trip w/ mt Frances, bacon n eggs, Lots of skiing

Winter before ski touring 2-3 days a week in Tahoe basin, averaging 5k-6k vert per day

If you’re fit and competent climbing from 14 is the way to go, especially later in the season when the boot pack makes the route like a sidewalk across the autobahn. Bring a pair of leather gloves to arm wrap the fixed lines and leave the rope and gear in camp. If you’re not comfortable being unroped, might want to reconsider that approach, otherwise anywhere from 9-14 hours camp to camp is very reasonable.

Spending a winter skiing 5k days and trail running beforehand is a great measure of fitness, along with acclimatization ventures to 17 prior to going to the summit. 

Solo from 17k. 9.5 hours from 17k to basecamp next day after summit (fast on skis from the 11k camp).

Can't recall our time from 17.  I want to think 8 hours round trip or so.  Took our time.  I should confirm with my notes...

Clint Helander wrote:

If it's your first time, I'd recommend doing several significant acclimatization pushes from 14K. First to the 16K ridge, perhaps to Washburn's Thumb to make a cache. Then to 17K a day or so later. Hang out there for a few hours, brew up and descend or continue a bit higher to the Denali Pass. If you feel good with that, recover and shoot for the summit from 14K. I've done that twice and it's taken me approximately 11 hours or so round trip from 14K. Make sure your whole team is on board though. It's a big day. 

If reaching the summit is the biggest goal, stay at 17K. It's very common for teams to take ~12hrs round trip from 17K. It buys you a lot of security and surety, but 17K is not that fun of a place to stay for long periods of time, no doubt. We went super light from 14K, no ropes or big packs, sleeping bags, etc, but we both had tons of experience on Denali and other mountains in Alaska and were confident moving unroped on the Autobahn and gauging the weather and our bodies at altitude. 

Set yourself up for success and do whatever makes the most sense for your abilities, fitness and team dynamics to get to the top and back down safely. A day after we did the 14K round trip, some team from Missouri tried to emulate our schedule and ended up having to cram into someone else's tent (with the owners) at 17K, got serious frost bite and were helivaced out of 14K.

Yes. 

Done it this way a few times.  If you are confident in you're acclimatization and fitness/abilities this is a solid way to approach the route.

Seems like we took 12 hours from 16k up to the summit then down to 17k. But we were schlepping everything and had come up a different route. We also has stellar conditions so camping at 17 was not a big deal. 

Speaking of different routes, friends have done the summit via the West Rib cutoff which that high camp is at ~16k. But ya gotta schlep everything to ~19k.

OP's orientation was on the 21st of May...(referenced from another thread).  Hopefully flown in by now although it sounds like fly in is bottle necked due to bad weather.

If you're reading this...say hi to Steve (VIP DRV).  Good luck up there.  

Just an FYI, three folks called in a rescue from Denali Pass just a day or so ago when they tried to go from 14 to the summit and got caught by wind and inexperience without any survival gear. So...if it's your first time on Denali and altitude, don't be a hot shot. Just do it the prescribed way like everyone else. Oh, and someone also fell from the Autobahn all the way down to the bottom and somehow survived (albeit in very serious condition and required an immediate rescue at the expense of others). 

Denali has a method and it works. If you're not a very experienced mountaineer, just do it the standard way that has worked for decades: bring a lot of stuff, wait out the bad weather, acclimatize, stay at 17K and don't become another statistic.

Timely dispatch from the park:

Troubling Trends

Yup.  It was in the Grand Junction Sentinel and the Denver Post today.

Just DON't DO IT.