Denali 2015: The Ecstasy and the Agony

I’ve always believed that storytelling is an art. And that holds true whether the story is told orally or in the written form. I have no skill in telling stories verbally. Too many distractions, too many things right in front of me that pull my mind away from the thing I’m trying to recall. Written storytelling, though … I’d say I’m better than many and have enjoyed writing online about my outdoors travels across the decades, garnering a lot of positive feedback from other hikers and mountaineers.

The one mountain I’ve avoided writing about in any great detail, however, is the greatest one I’ve ever climbed. Denali. The summit of North America and my 50th and final state highpoint. Too much happened and it was more than my mind wanted to process in the immediate aftermath of it. I took the victory lap, of course, having gained more attention back home than I really had sought or wanted. I talked about the Denali climb superficially and put it in the bigger context of the entire 50 state project. The following year, after I climbed Mount Rainier a second time, there was a big news story that made the front page of two local newspapers with a giant photo of me holding a banner reading “Styczynski – Denali 2015.” I was simultaneously prideful and mortified.

But the whole story, the story of what really happened in the upper reaches of North America has remained locked inside of me, with only my wife and the people who were there knowing the full truth. The story of how I could have and probably should have died but pulled myself together in the nick of time with the help of my teammates. This is a story that has taken the passage of time to really be able to go back and revisit. Some of the details may be fuzzy at this point and some things may be remembered differently by those who were there, but this is my story of how it all went down as best as I can recall seven years later.

Like many good stories, this one starts at a pizza restaurant. Specifically, the Moose’s Tooth Pub and Pizzeria in Anchorage, Alaska. My American Alpine Institute teammates and I had all agreed to meet here for our first introduction to one another. A truly international team with me being the sole American in the group. I was purposefully early and took an observation post in the courtyard outside the pizzeria trying to see if I could pick out fit-looking mountaineers that would become part of the center of my universe for the next three weeks. I watched a man and woman enter the courtyard and take a seat. I studied them a bit and decided they weren’t the type. As if a mountaineer has a stereotypical look and way about them. But as the minutes went by, I looked their way again and could see they were also waiting for someone. Finally, our eyes met and it seems they had made the same original assessment of me. Not the type. But they were now reconsidering as was I. “Mark?” “Yes. You must be Damien and Fiona.” Being the first there, the two Aussies and I took the lead and tried to arrange a large table for our team of seven. There was Boris, Roman and Ross, childhood friends from Australia who were now climbing big mountains around the world together. And also the inimitable Richard from England, another solo traveler who would become my tent-mate on the mountain. The restaurant was popular and loud and we wound up settling for two adjacent tables. Not ideal but it was good. The food, drink and conversation flowed as it would so many other times when we weren’t focused on the serious matter of climbing the highest mountain in North America. The group energy was endlessly positive and we bonded as a team and as humans from those very first moments.

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June 22, 2015 – 1:00 AM – Denali Pass

“What about right over there?” I said, vaguely motioning toward a group of rocks that would offer some protection from the elements.

“What about right over there, what?” came the bewildered response.

“Well, I’m carrying my own sleeping bag. I could set up over there and you all could come get me in the morning if I make it.”

In my own mind at that exact moment, the suggestion made perfect sense. I’d read many stories over the years of high altitude bivies done out of necessity for one reason or another. And to me, this seemed absolutely necessary. Not just for me but for my rope team. We were at 18,200 feet at the famed Denali Pass with a steep descent of the Autobahn looming in front of us. One of the most technical portions of the entire West Buttress Route and the site of so very many accidents and deaths across the decades.

I was in no condition to attempt the down-climb. And I certainly didn’t want to endanger the lives of my teammates, folks who had become my friends over the last two and a half weeks and who had their own lives and people who cared about them back home. This wasn’t their fault and it didn’t seem fair to me that I’d pulled them into this mess. I knew the risks going into this venture and fate was dealing me a hand over which I now had no control.

I restated my position somewhat more forcefully, not putting it forward as a suggestion but as a statement of intent.

“The weather is calm. I’ll be fine.”

The conversation turned tense. Voices got loud. The situation was real and words of that exact nature were spoken.

“We are absolutely NOT leaving you here. We’re going to get through this, got it?”

My blood now surging with testosterone and adrenaline and my mind now full of anger and renewed focus, I rose to my feet.

“One step at a time, Mark. One step at a time”

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We rolled into Talkeetna, Alaska in a large white passenger van sometime in the late morning of June 8, 2015 and instantly started behaving more like tourists than a group of mountaineers. We walked the main drag and took photo-op style pictures with each other in front of the famed “Welcome to Beautiful Downtown Talkeetna” sign.

“Did you know the mayor is actually a cat? Yeah, he lives at Nagley’s General Store.”

Of course, we all also humorously learned that Talkeetna is known to visiting mountaineers as “a drinking town with a climbing problem.” It’s a phrase I have often repeated in the seven years that have now passed since that day as I continue to wear my signature blue “Talkeetna, Alaska” jacket throughout every spring and fall.

The mood soon became somewhat more focused as we trekked to the Denali Ranger Station for our mountain briefing where we learned of all of the things that could kill or disfigure us way up there. Crevasses, falls, high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE), high altitude cerebral edema (HACE), frostbite. We learned of “clean mountain cans” for temporary storage of human waste and good mountain ethics so that everyone on the mountain can experience it equally. Stewardship. We looked at the big board that tracks the progress of all climbers on the mountain as well as a summit success rate of less than 50 percent as it is most years.

Then we slowly made our way to the airport with the hopes of catching a flight through “one shot pass” onto the Kahiltna Glacier where we would set up Base Camp at 7,200 feet that night. It was close to the summer solstice with nearly 24 hours of at least partial daylight so the exact time that our K2 Aviation plane would take off with us and our gear was of little consequence. Except maybe to the pilots who probably preferred to be home in time for dinner. The weather was the most important factor as the flight is only possible if conditions are nearly perfect. It is not unusual for climbers to wait two or three days waiting for that weather window to open thus making transportation to the mountain possible.

But the prevailing conditions remained just right for us as we organized our equipment and supplies, happily taking group pictures in front of one of the planes and readying ourselves for the biggest adventure that many of us would ever have.

The information was all in my head and my enthusiasm soared. I had planned for this for two years, trained for nine months. My equipment was all top of the line and battle tested in the Adirondack Mountains of New York in winter or in my own backyard igloo.

“I got this,” I had confidently written folks back home as news of my attempt on North America’s highest peak spread like wildfire among friends and family.

As I look back now at that photo of me smiling blissfully and broadly in front of the glacier plane at K2 Aviation, I see the face of a person who would never exist in exactly the same way again. Mountains can change you. And Denali would certainly forever alter me. It’s one thing to know what to what could happen and quite another to FEEL every bit of it. I was in for the ass-kicking of a lifetime. And I had no idea it was coming.

For the next little while, at least, the experience remained surreal and magical. We lifted off from K2 Aviation sometime between 2 and 3 PM in two separate glacier planes. Only with the aid of photos can I remember which team members were on my plane as my eyes focused outward and remained fixated on the majestic scenery. We followed the Sustina River for a bit before the terrain became more mountainous.

And then the spectacular “one shot pass.” Was this really happening? The pilot expertly held the plane steady and maneuvered it between two jagged peaks with not much room to spare beyond either wingtip. The Kahiltna Glacier opened in front of us and before long we were on the ground, the runway being entirely made up of stomped down snow and ice. The 20,310 foot summit of Denali (not visible from Base Camp) still loomed more than 13,000 feet above us – a vertical challenge which exceeds that of the South Col Route on Mount Everest. Also, there are no Sherpas on Denali. We would be carrying our own gear on our backs and in sleds for the next two or three weeks and essentially climbing the mountain twice due to the common caching/back-carry strategy employed by most teams on the mountain.

For the moment, it was all so perfect. The stuff of which dreams are made. My vision of one day climbing Denali had lived inside of me for 20 years. And now I was here. Next stop – the crown of North America and the fulfillment of a long journey to reach the top of each and every US State Highpoint.

If only it had been so easy.

Seven years is a long time to remember all of the details of such a big expedition with so many moving parts. But thanks to American Alpine Institute’s Denali 2015 Team 6 dispatches which still live on youtube, I am able to go back day-by-day and accurately detail which camp we were at on which day.

Base Camp was quiet both that evening and the following morning as many other “late season” teams had moved out. In fact, for most of the climb, we would see very little traffic on the West Buttress Route itself.

I wasn’t a fan of the snowshoes I would be wearing on the lower half of the mountain. My wife had purchased me a pair of Atlas 1230s several years earlier. They were tough and durable and hearty and had done quite well in deep snow in both the Adirondacks of New York and White Mountains of New Hampshire. I loved them not just because of their excellent performance but also because my wife had done all the research on them before lovingly giving them to me as a Christmas gift.

In the lead-up to the climb, I had lost a debate with American Alpine Institute about bringing them to Denali. No, they told me, all climbers will be wearing the Denali Evo Ascent snowshoes and if you don’t own a pair, we’ll rent them to you. Fine. Not cool at all, but fine.

As I donned these plastic snowshoes the first day, they seemed more like a kid’s toy than real mountain hardware even though I am well aware of their use throughout the hiking community, mostly for use on well-trodden trails with firm packed down snow. They are ridiculously small and have almost zero “float.”

My backpack came in at a solid 60 pounds with another 60 pounds or so in the sled I would be pulling behind me for the next seven hours en route to Camp 1. Due to the long distance and crevasse hazard, the trek from Base Camp to Camp 1 is the only time on the entire route where we would be doing a “full carry.” And we would be doing it on the very first day. Everything including the proverbial kitchen sink was coming with us.

At first, it wasn’t so bad. We actually lost a tiny bit of elevation as we worked our way down Heartbreak Hill and my sled occasionally pulled even with and off to the left of me thanks to the effects of gravity. Then it was flat for a bit while the early cloud cover of the day kept the snow solid and very agreeable for foot travel.

But after a couple of hours, the sun came out, the snow softened and the route led uphill. I was second in line, immediately behind our lead guide Andrew. I could see he was working hard breaking trail in the lead. But his post-holing left me no option but to make my own tracks as well. For team members in the back, by the time seven or eight or nine sets of snowshoes had packed the route, it was no big deal.

But I was near the front in my rental snowshoes swearing up a storm and just trying to keep them from falling off my feet, an effort which produced mixed results as I broke through the snow continually. To add insult to injury – although I didn’t learn of it until later that evening – my sled brake had somehow become engaged, meaning that I was essentially pulling dead weight uphill in mashed potato snow. I literally had to thrust my hips and yank forward with every single step. And it was miserable work. Only lead guide Andrew who was in front of me got the full effect of my colorful obscenity laden commentary, which only let up after we once again leveled out.

I’m not going to say it was easy the rest of the way to Camp 1 because it wasn’t. It was bull work of a magnitude I had never previously experienced, largely made possible by the 120 pounds I was hauling with an engaged sled brake. But with the worst of it behind us, I retreated a little more inward and just quietly focused on getting it done. After my earlier explosion of negative energy, I was content to be ignored for the rest of the afternoon. Clouds moved in and a bit of snow began to fall as the seeming unending route to Camp 1 dragged on and on. Just when I thought we were almost there, a whole new gigantic area to cross appeared. The scene became almost mirage-like in the light blowing snow as I convinced myself that those rocks just ahead were people moving around Camp 1. And, of course, I was wrong.

Finally it was over. I’d made it and after dropping my pack and disconnecting from the sled, I collapsed on my back in the snow not really caring what that was communicating to everyone else. I was covered in sweat and my throat was raw from over-exertion. I was absolutely wiped out and had almost been the victim of a first round knockout. A guide came over and offered me a snack size can of Pringles and it may have been the best meal I had our entire time on the mountain. Or in my life. All of these years later, I can still hear that crunch and taste the salt that my body so craved in that moment.

Only 12,500 feet more in elevation to go. How the heck am I going to do this?

Weather is a funny thing. It is the one variable you can’t control in the mountains. No amount of planning, training or fitness can overcome what kind of weather the mountain chooses to throw at you. Yeah, you can play the percentages and attempt a mountain at the time of the year when you are most likely to have strong chances at good prevailing conditions. Everest in May or Denali in early June, for example. But what happens day-to-day within that advantageous weather window is a wildcard … the big X factor. At the end of the day, it’s all a crapshoot.

After American Alpine Institute 2015 Team 6 finished setting up Camp 1 to prepare for our second night on the mountain, I was able to recover somewhat from the big effort of Day 1 while laying in my tent with Richard, a police prosecutor from England. We had just had a big meal thanks to the culinary skills of our guides and all the talk had been of going halfway to Camp 2 the following day, caching half of our supplies by burying it all in the snow before returning to Camp 1 for a second night. The guides wanted to move up the lower mountain quickly to get us in a position to maximize our chances for a summit push. Honestly, I was questioning if I had it in me. Another difficult agenda while I was still feeling pretty ragged from the first day’s effort was going to be a challenge for me.

So when a snow system moved in that night stopping us in our tracks, the guides expressed some disappointment while I internally felt a great sense of relief. It would give me a full day to both recover and acclimate to being at nearly 8,000 feet. But then one day turned into two days as more than a foot of snow would fall on us with another 12 to 24 inches predicted for what certainly was shaping up to be a third day stuck at Camp 1. As we went to bed that evening preparing for another day of endless shoveling inside our ping pong ball, we all shared concerns that we were getting too far behind schedule and might not have enough time to make a serious attempt at the summit.

But then the mountain handed us a gift. As we all emerged from our tents the following morning, it turned out that only another two or three inches of snow had fallen and the skies were clearing out. Go time! We all felt strong after two days and three nights of camp life and were all itching to get on the move.

After the sled debacle of the first day, I insisted on carrying all of my assigned gear/weight in my backpack and the guides did not object. I had purchased a huge Gregory Denali 100 backpack for this trip and was fully confident in my ability to jam in everything I needed for the carry up to the cache site at 10,000 feet or so. We were happy to be in motion and the snow-blanketed scenery was spectacular during the first portion of our trek. The bright Alaska summer sunshine reflected off of the snow to basically hit us twice with the guides constantly reminding us to apply sunscreen and/or don our buffs over our faces.

Soon enough, we began to gain elevation and move through the contours as more clouds rolled in, mostly covering the sun and making personal temperature control a much more manageable proposition. We noticed one team employing a full carry strategy as its members set up an intermediate camp as we closed in on our cache site.

Upon arriving at our designated drop area, we went to work digging a six foot hole in the snow into which we would then toss our gear before wanding it so we could find it the following day. This was done primarily to protect it from the Denali ravens which love to dig deep into the snow to get at expedition food supplies sometimes dashing the hopes of climbing parties which had otherwise prepared properly. Once accomplished, the trip back to Camp 1 went by quickly as we were now heading downhill with nearly zero weight. It had been a full day and one of our teammates took his turn in the exhaustion tank as he had worked himself just a little too hard while trying to assist with pretty much every task. Otherwise, we all felt strong and energized as we retired to our tents that evening.

And just like that, Team 6 turned on a dime from being hopelessly stuck in the snow to being a well-oiled mountain machine.

At about 10 AM the next morning, we said goodbye to Camp 1 for good and began a methodical march up the mountain. After some early wind blew away any remaining clouds, a high pressure system would take hold as we enjoyed one perfect weather day after another.

Having made my point the previous day, I backpedaled on my sled objection and pulled my gear behind me on firmly packed snow. The sled had to come with us one way or another and if I wasn’t going to pull it, I’d have to carry it. The footing was great for the snowshoes as well and I would have no further problems with either item of gear that had caused me so much misery that first day. We bypassed our previous day’s cache and arrived at Camp 2 at 11,200 feet sometime around 4 or 5 PM that afternoon.

It would be a few more days before we rested again. After a windy first night at Camp 2 night where our tents thrashed as loudly as a freight train, we completed our first back-carry, heading downhill to the site of our cache, digging up all of our gear from six feet deep in the snowpack and then sledding it all the way up to Camp 2. The three day cycle of moving from Camp 1 to Camp 2 was now complete and the focus would now be on completing another three day move to establish Camp 3 at 14,200 feet.

The weather cooperated again the next day as we started up Motorcycle Hill and then Squirrel Hill before traversing the Polo Field, cutting around not-so-windy Windy Corner and caching at 13,500 feet during a six hour round trip. And then on June 15th, on what felt like a blazing hot 90 degree day due to the radiant sunshine at such a high elevation, we rolled into Camp 3 in style during the mid-afternoon in shirt sleeves, putting the lower mountain below and behind us.

After five full days on the move, the guides decided give us a rest day on June 16th and completed the quick back-carry to 13,500 feet themselves. We dried out our inner boots in the blazing sunshine, played games like frisbee and just generally lounged around camp. We had bonded as a team, knew what to expect from one another and the running rally call had become “NO FUN ALLOWED.” Mountaineering is serious business, DARN -IT, and there’s no place for laughter and levity. We all regularly called out one another for enjoying this expedition just a little too much. Smiling just a little too often. We especially scolded Boris (with whom I’d later go on to ascend Mounts Rainier and Shasta) for walking around Camp 3 in his underwear. I mean, who does that on Denali?

After the rejuvenating rest day on the 16th, the true mountaineering part of the expedition began. Until now, we had essentially been snow hiking. Hard work with some crevasse danger to be sure but no danger of falling off the mountain. From here on out, objective dangers would be everywhere. Fixed lines, 55 degree snow/ice slopes, airy ridges with drop-offs of thousands of feet on either side. You get the picture. The snowshoes and trekking poles were stored away in favor of crampons and ice axes.

On June 17th, we waited until around 11 AM to leave camp, thereby giving summit-bound teams time to clear the route and reducing any potential wait time on the fixed ropes. From Camp 3, the route would lead with increasing steepness to the West Buttress proper at 16,500 feet. Here we would make our final cache, but unlike the previous three day cycles of moving camp, this would be just a two day job. The plan was to reclaim our cached gear during our move to Camp 4 thus eliminating unnecessary ridge traverses across the spiciest and objectively most dangerous part of the entire route.

I embraced the challenge of the day with full enthusiasm. Ever since we had first laid eyes on this part of the climb when we walked into Camp 3 a couple of days earlier, I was mesmerized by it and couldn’t stop staring up at the slope, envisioning myself climbing it. “Oh yeah!” I had exclaimed on the afternoon of June 15th as it came into view. “What’s that, about 2,500 feet up?” “You know it!” came the reply from one of the guides.

And it was everything I imagined it would be. I had been on steep snow faces on climbs of Mount Hood, Mount Rainier and Gannett Peak, Wyoming. But this was world class and unlike anything I’d previously experienced. Gut check time, so to speak. A friend with whom I’d climbed the highly exposed Granite Peak, Montana a few years earlier ended his climb on this very part of the route, forever ending his 50 state highpoint dream.

For the next six hours, we first employed good crampon technique and then broke out our ascenders as we worked our way up to and then down from the West Buttress, practicing on the fixed lines as each of us stared straight uphill at the butt of whichever teammate was immediately in front of us. The ascenders work on the fixed lines by basically preventing you from sliding backwards. You move the ascender up the rope just a tiny bit at a time and the device is built to bite into the rope if there is reverse force. It will go up, but it will not go down. If you lose your balance, it will still be awkward to regain your position with injury remaining a possibility. But you will not fall to your death.

Magnificent though it was, there was no shortage of swearing and yelling in pretty much every direction possible. Client to client, client to guide, guide to client. We were all having fun on a certain level, but this was, in fact, serious stuff. As I reached the end of the fixed lines, one of the guides spotted me and asked where my climbing helmet was. “Oops,” I replied as I realized it was still strapped to my backpack. “Just put it on before Andrew [the lead guide] sees you,” came the reply as I now felt like a kid who had just gotten saved from getting into trouble with Dad. Fortunately, none of my teammates above me had dislodged a chunk of ice, which could have been very bad news for my unprotected head. Oops indeed.

The down-climb of the fixed ropes was also tricky but the team atmosphere was less tense. We all looked down in awe from our position more than 2,000 feet above the now tiny-looking Camp 3 with the impressive Mount Foraker looming in the distance.

Another rest day on June 18th would follow as we geared up for the summit bid. The next time we left Camp 3, our summit push would begin. Ideally, you want to do your summit push on back-to-back days to minimize time spent at the 17,200 foot Camp 4, where altitude and conditions can severely weaken even the strongest of teams. So move to Camp 4 on the 19th and take our shot at the summit on the 20th. The high pressure system was still forecast to remain in place and our weather window was wide open.

On the night of June 18th, we recorded Dispatch #13 of the trip with each of us sending a message to loved ones back home. My voice was hopeful and light. It was feeling like this was really going to happen for me. My 50th state highpoint … just 22 short years after hiking to the top of New York’s Mount Marcy as a young State Trooper.

“Hi. This is Mark from New York. Just want to send some love to my beautiful wife Laura and awesome kids April, Brooke and Christopher. Everything’s working out perfectly. Hopefully, uh, this weekend, it’s gonna happen. Love ya. Bye.”

Getting a super early start on Denali on the brink of summer solstice was of little importance to us. We knew we would be enjoying 24 hours of daylight for the remainder of our trip, however long it might last. We roped up and left Camp 3 bound for Camp 4 around 8:30 AM on June 19th. We quickly moved into the shadows cast by the West Buttress itself and experienced some of the coldest temperatures we would face during the entire expedition. I was wearing Koflach Arctic Expe double boots as I had been since Day 1. They’d performed magnificently and I had inserted custom fit Intuition liners for added warmth on the upper mountain upon our arrival to Camp 3. Even at that, my feet got cold on the morning of the 19th and there were other teammates who were vocally complaining about cold feet as we worked our way up the slope to the West Buttress proper for the second time in 48 hours. Although I kept quiet about it, I became somewhat frustrated when one of my rope-mates would request to stop for a boot adjustment. Just when my feet had started to warm up, 5 or 10 minutes of inactivity would cool them right down again.

Nonetheless, we methodically worked our way up the snow/ice slope and out of the shadows and cold. Once the sun hit us, warmth returned to my now numb fingers and toes. I have had Raynaud’s Syndrome since my 20s and my frequent trips to the cold of big snowy mountains has only exacerbated the situation. We reached the top of the slope and the start of the West Buttress proper sometime around noon and were more than ready to make a thrilling ridge traverse to Camp 4. Completely psyched, in fact.

Getting from the top of the slope at 16,500 feet up and over Washburn’s Thumb to Camp 4 involves only another 700 feet in elevation gain but it would take us most of the afternoon to navigate the tricky terrain. Most folks who climb Denali via this route rate this portion of the climb as the most memorable. The exposure is insane and an unprotected fall will almost certainly be fatal. The senses become heightened by both the objective danger as well as the breathtaking beauty of the ridge. It’s hard to find words that do justice to what one feels during the airy traverse. Our lead guide Andrew would also describe it as his favorite part of the climb during Dispatch 14, recorded later that night.

I was placed at the back of the three rope teams, a position that I felt showed confidence in my abilities and performance on the mountain thus far. We had a running belay system that used both fixed snow pickets placed on the more dangerous parts of the ridge as well as some of our own. In essence, we were roped not only to each other but also attached to the mountain for much of the crossing. As the last in line, my job was to pull the gear that was our own … gear that had been placed by the first guide on the lead rope team. As such, I had to spend no small amount of extra energy pulling the snow pickets and then strapping them around my torso as they clanged together loudly with every step.

I made no complaints. In fact, I don’t know that I have ever felt more proud of my amateur mountaineering skills than I did that afternoon. It had been my greatest day in the mountains bar none and I happily made cow “mooing” sounds as I walked into Camp 4 as the final member of our team to arrive at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. The dozen or so snow pickets strapped to my chest sounded just like cowbells as they made a metallic melody and I couldn’t resist adding the extra bit of animal sound effects.

I was happy.

And then it happened.

2 AM.

I awoke in what had been the cook tent, which we had now decided to use as a communal group tent for High Camp thus having saved us the energy of carrying three extra tents from C3 to C4. I was closest to the exit flap and some spindrift was sneaking in through the cracks and partially covering me in snow as my teammates all slept peacefully off to the left, sharing body heat with one another.

OMG! My head. It hurt so bad. I felt as if it was in a tightening vice grip and the pain radiated traumatically. My vision was blurred as I struggled to my knees, my hands now manipulating my eyes, trying desperately to bring things back into focus. I checked my pulse, which was humming along in the low to mid 100s. If I had been back home in the safety and security of my home, a 911 call would have been in order. But I was not at home. I was at 17,200 feet on the highest mountain in North America with no chance of medical attention of any type.

We had all brought pee bottles with us to save the trouble of leaving the tent in the middle of the night to answer nature’s call. I made an attempt to relieve myself in my haze as I became vaguely aware of a teammate who was now watching me in my agony. But I couldn’t see the pee bottle that was only an arm length’s away and sprayed half of it all over my sleeping bag, leaving behind a stink that still lingers seven years later.

It was all concerning, but the vision thing was the most alarming. Could this be the start of HACE? I’d had previous difficulties with AMS at altitude going back to my ascent of Wheeler Peak, New Mexico nine years earlier. But my doctor had been prescribing me Diamox for years and I thought I had the thing licked. But this was a new personal elevation record for me by a factor of more than 2,500 feet. My body was now in uncharted territory.

I was in trouble and I knew it. For the next four hours, my head pain was unimaginable as I constantly shifted positions just trying to get comfortable. Trying to find something to take an edge off the hurt.

6 AM arrived and I bolted outside the tent. I needed fresh air or a change of scenery or something other than what felt like a tomb those last four hours. Being vertical helped a bit but I was wrecked. Absolutely destroyed. No chance whatsoever of climbing to the top of Denali that day.

At the first sign of movement from the guide tent, I wandered over to Andrew and flatly declared that I was done.

“Big headache, racing pulse,” I told him, intentionally leaving out the part about blurred vision that would have almost certainly started the process of evacuating me off the mountain.

“OK, you sure?”

“Yes.”

And it was done. Just like that, my Denali dream was over. For the next two hours, in my now subsiding blurry headache fog, I thought about what I would tell my kids when I got back home. It was all about having big dreams and coming up just a little bit short. About not really living if you only try things when you know you’ll succeed.

For me, all that was left was the down-climb. A difficult situation knowing that I’d be surrounded by my new friends who were about to succeed when I’d failed.

But for the second time on the expedition, the hand of fate would intervene in my favor.

As my teammates awoke from their slumbers, the situation revealed a mishmash of headaches, sluggishness and general malaise. Could more than half of my Team 6 mates have made the summit that day? Almost certainly. We had some young studs and a strong female in the group who were ready to go. But not everyone. And everyone on the summit is what the guides desired. They wanted us to succeed as a team. 100 percent on top. Having one guy (me) opt out is one thing but another 2 or 3 choosing to stay behind created logistical issues in addition to ending all of those Denali dreams.

So the guides consulted the weather forecast and informed us we had one extra day of good weather before a low pressure system would begin to move in.

We would wait. All for one and one for all.

It was a very leisurely day around High Camp without the constant hubbub of activity that goes along with life at Camp 3. Hardly anyone was here and the other small teams that were present were well away from us and shielded from visibility by snow walls.

By mid-afternoon – thanks to plenty of food, Diamox, hydration and ibuprofen – my headache had substantially subsided and I was starting to feel my energy return. It was just barely enough of a recovery for me to feel like I still had a shot at this thing. 3,000 vertical feet, Mark. C’mon! Just like a vigorous winter hike in the Adirondack High Peaks of New York or the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Except at altitude. I once again began to visualize myself standing on top of North America, imagine myself completing my 20 year dream and 50 state highpoint quest.

I was back in.

I would either taste the joy of victory or feel the sting of spectacular defeat.

June 21, 2015 – 8:15 AM – Camp 4

“Good morning, everyone. This is Andrew from Denali Team 6 calling in on a beautiful day. Some low clouds in the valleys but up here at 17,000 feet, the sun hit our tent. It is 8:15. We’ve got water going and our plan today is to make an attempt on the summit. So Happy Solstice, Happy Fathers Day. We’re psyched to give this a go. Next time you hear from us is while we’re safely back down. So wish us luck and we’ll talk to you guys soon. Have a good one.”

It was probably 11 AM before we were on the move. It’s hard to remember much about that morning. I don’t remember any conversations or checking my equipment. I don’t remember eating or getting dressed. My energy was inwardly focused on the task that stood before me. Getting my body up there.

I do remember the Autobahn. It is an impressive wall of snow and ice angled at somewhere around 45 to 50 degrees. But the route almost all teams take (including ours) cuts across a boot pack in the snow between Camp 4 and Denali Pass. It makes no sense to climb straight up the gut since Camp 4 is over here and Denali Pass is over there. As on the West Buttress ridge, there were fixed snow pickets for protection along the most dangerously exposed portions of the route. An unprotected fall in these spots would likely pull – as it has many times before – an entire rope team off of the mountain thus sending climbers down slope with increasing speed while wildly trying use ice axes to self arrest. Hence … the Autobahn.

Although it was cold, conditions were fantastic for us that day with some fresh but not untrodden snow providing good footing for us as we traversed the slope upwards and in the direction of Denali Pass. Physically, I was feeling good but not great. My body was strong, but I was in a mental haze. From my very first steps that day, it was my determination that carried me upwards and to whatever destiny had in store for me.

We reached Denali Pass and I soon became aware of a teammate who was having issues with very cold hands and feet and was considering turning back. Losing him would have created logistical issues as a guide would have had to accompany him back to Camp 4. So instead of 3 guides and 7 clients, we would have become 2 guides and 6 clients. With a higher guide to client ratio comes less flexibility in decision-making possibilities on the mountain. It’s an inverse relationship. The mini-crisis resolved itself and we continued as a team of 10.

The next thing I remember is being surprised at how challenging the following section was. At least for me on that day. I had expected it to get a bit easier after Denali Pass but the next 1,300 feet worth of elevation gain at a much lower angle than the Autobahn worked my lungs to full capacity. My legs felt fine but processing oxygen was starting to become a real thing as I set a new personal elevation record with each and every step upwards.

Somewhere around the start of the feature known as the Football Field, we crossed paths with a descending Asian Team with whom we had been leapfrogging during our entire two weeks on the mountain. It would be the only other team we would see during our 16 hours above Camp 4 that day.

Now at 19,500 feet and on flat terrain, my confidence soared. Only 800 feet in elevation remained as I gleefully exclaimed “And down the stretch they come!” An American horse racing reference that absolutely no one on my team seemed to get. In retrospect, it seems like a stupid thing to have said.

Nonetheless, the top of North America was now close enough to touch. All that remained was a scramble up Pig Hill and then the summit ridge would lead us to the Promised Land. I remember taking a break near the bottom of Pig Hill and wishing it hadn’t wrapped up so quickly. It’s hard to go back and pinpoint exactly why I felt that way since it had been the same length break we’d been taking every single time since Day 1. But this is the point where I believe it all started to unravel for me.

Pig Hill kicked my butt. It was much steeper than I’d expected (about 40 degrees) and was loaded with fresh snow. Our rope teams zigged and zagged switchback style to try and take an edge off of it but it was hard work. I was gasping for air with every step at that point. It is said that due to its far northern latitude, 20,000 feet on Denali is roughly equivalent to 24,000 feet in the Himalayas. The famed Death Zone (above which the human body cannot survive for more than a few days) begins at 26,000 feet. We were in rarified air and my lungs weren’t digging it.

We stopped for another break at the top of Pig Hill and I just dropped to my hands and knees sucking wind.

A teammate took note.

“Are you doing OK, Mark?”

“Conscious, alert and breathing.”

It was not the first time I’d made this retort since my middle of the night incident less than two days ago. A reference from my police/first responder days while assessing patients. Which is exactly what I felt like. A patient.

It was evening now and just the summit ridge remained. One of my favorite photos from that day captures me in my yellow Western Mountaineering puffy from behind with my teammates Boris and Richard just ahead of me. The ridge was very exposed with all of North America under our feet but the angle was manageable. Compared to Pig Hill, it was easy.

As I took those last few steps to the summit of my dreams, I felt overwhelmed. My friends all cheered me as I was second from the back of the last rope team once again. They knew the deal. Number 50! I nearly dropped to my knees Bjorn Borg winning Wimbledon style but decided to man up instead even as tears of joy formed in the corners of my eyes.

I had done it.

June 21, 2015 – 8:00 PM – Summit of Denali

“Hey guys. This is Andrew with Denali Team 6 and we’re on top of North America! Team 6, give a yell! (wild cheering). I’m here with, let’s see, Mark Styczynski, Richard Wilson, Fiona Yard, Boris Lerner, Roman Meck, Damien Smith and last but not least, where is he, Ross Veltman along with my colleagues Tad McCrea and Andy Stephen. This is Andrew Yasso calling from the top of North America. Denail Team 6 summit success! (wild cheering).”

“Still got a little bit ahead of us, guys. We got to get back to camp safely. Had a wonderful summit day. It’s quite calm on the summit right now. Letting us take a number of photos. The sun’s out. The Alaska Range is in a blanket of clouds below us. We’ll give you a call when we get back to Camp 4. Let ya know we’re down safe. Thanks for following us so far. Woohoo!”

Following our summit celebration and photo shoot, we started back down the summit ridge in fine style.

At some point as we neared the top of Pig Hill, a teammate expressed a desire to take a break. The guides wanted to keep pushing downhill and I chimed in with my own opinion that we should take our next break at the bottom of Pig Hill. And so we marched on and soon began the steep descent of the same terrain that had left me gasping for air just a couple of hours earlier.

On November 22, 1986, a young Mike Tyson fought Trevor Berbick for the WBC heavyweight title on his way to soon becoming the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. Late in the second round, Iron Mike landed a right to the body of Berbick and followed it up with a left hook to the head that dropped the champion. Berbick attempted to get up but stumbled awkwardly to his left halfway across the ring before falling to his side. Not ready to give up, Berbick rose to his feet once again before stumbling wildly to the right all the way across the ring before going down one final time. When he got up, referee Mills Lane moved in, threw his arms around Berbick and mercifully stopped the fight.

“He’s got the heart but his body won’t let him do what his mind wants to.”

Ataxia.

In my young life, I had only seen such an obvious display of ataxia one other time. The first example had been during a trip to Poland with my parents a couple of years before that Tyson-Berbick bout when we watched a drunk man walking through a pedestrian tunnel. It had been comical watching him bounce from one side wall to the other as he made his way forward. Coordination, balance and speech can all go away when ataxia moves in.

Ataxia can be caused by a variety of things. Getting punched in the head by Mike Tyson or drinking yourself into oblivion. It is also one of the primary symptoms of HACE. High Altitude Cerebral Edema occurs when the brain swells with fluid due to the physiological effects of traveling to high altitude. It has nothing to with with fitness and – although rare – can occur in anyone, strike at anytime. Left untreated, it is almost always fatal within 24-48 hours.

I started down Pig Hill uneventfully at first, confidently plunging my crampons and double boots into soft calf deep snow. And then I inexplicably fell down. I tried to get up but stumbled to the side and went down again. And then again, this time falling to the other side. In my mind’s eye, the memory of that Tyson-Berbick fight was pulled from somewhere deep inside me. I paused as a guide asked what was going on. I had no answer. After the brief stop, I continued downhill but soon fell again. And again. And again. By the time I reached the bottom of Pig Hill, I would estimate that I had fallen no less than a dozen times.

The guides moved in. This was officially a situation.

There was a big hubbub over me at the bottom of Pig Hill. I vaguely remember saying my heart felt like it was ready to explode as my pulse ripped along at a ridiculous rate, trying desperately to deliver oxygen to my starving brain. There is a picture of me in that general time frame standing with my head hung, arms drooping, toes pointed inwards for balance.

The next few hours are kind of a blur. Snippets of memories. Things that stand out. Falling more. Slurring words only to catch myself and purposefully repeat them slowly without slurring. Guides looking into my eyes, studying my pupils, discussing my well-being.

At some point, daylight turned to twilight. Denali Pass became my focus. That was going to be the end of the road for me. I would stop there. Crawl into my sleeping bag and rest just a little bit. Perhaps forever.

Lassitude.

Another of the key indicators of HACE. Wanting to just stop and close your eyes and take a nap even as your life is in danger.

The guides needed to motivate me. And that’s exactly what they did at Denali Pass. Tad and Andy challenged me, pissed me off, fired me up and ultimately probably saved my life. There was still fight in me yet and they pulled it to the surface.

I later learned that there had been talk of lowering me down the Autobahn, an intensive exercise that would have taken all night. Instead, I was allowed to continue under my own power with a guide immediately behind and slightly uphill of me on a short rope. The idea was that if I should start to fall again, he would see it and immediately be able to arrest the fall before I gained any momentum and yanked our entire rope team of five off of the mountain.

Once we were on the move, the tone changed. Just moments earlier, the guides had been in my face. Now Tad was gently coaching me. “Nice job, Mark. You’re doing great,” I would hear as I focused with everything I had on each and every step. I looked straight down at my feet and carefully planted my crampons into the slope, making sure I was on solid ground before repeating the process with my other foot. Literally walking on eggshells.

Before long, I began to gain the tiniest bit of confidence. The minutes ticked by and we soon fell into a rhythm. A cadence. Just keep doing what you’re doing, Mark, I coaxed myself. My body was strong even as altitude continued to rack my brain.

30 minutes passed. I dared to occasionally look up ever-so-briefly at our position to see that we were making progress downslope before returning to my hyper-fixation on foot placement.

We passed the 60 minute mark and I started to believe I might actually make it all the way down the Autobahn without falling. The most dangerous part of the down-climb was behind us. A fall would still be serious but likely non-fatal.

The angle began to ease and we knew we had it. Normal conversation started once again amongst the others as one of the guys said he was actually glad this whole thing had happened. How it had given us a chance to bond as a team.

We walked into Camp 4 sometime around 3 AM and I gushed my thanks to my teammates and the guides. One photo captures me looking drunk with my arm around guide Andy, who had lead our rope team down the Autobahn and been so truly concerned about me at my worst, reassuring me that I was in good hands, that they knew what they were doing.

And then everyone retired to either the guide or client tent as I just sat there gathering myself for several minutes before digging my sleeping bag out of my backpack and getting some much needed rest. As I drifted off to sleep that early morning, I felt a strange combination of embarrassment and shame over what had transpired. It wasn’t supposed to have been like this.

June 22, 2015 – 4:45 AM – Camp 4

“Team 6 back here in the tent at 4:45 in the morning. We got back at around 3 AM. Long day. We got a lot of tired, sleepy climbers. We brewed up some hot water, got us some dinner and they’re all tucked into their beds. So all pretty psyched to be back safe and sound and the goal tomorrow is to move down to 14 and start our march out off this mountain. We’ll give you guys a call from down there. But YES we are all safe and back at high camp. Have a good night.”

The remainder of our time on Denali felt more like a hurried evacuation than an orderly down-climb.

To be clear, there were multiple motivations for the rushed departure. Even to this day, as I look back on it all, I’m not sure which played a bigger role in the guides’ approach to it.

For starters, there was my situation, which was still quite an unresolved matter. Getting down the Autobahn that morning had been huge in terms of my chances of survival, but we were still at 17,200 feet and I was far from out of the woods. For HACE patients, the number one thing that reduces the swelling of the brain is rapid descent. No official diagnosis had been made but HACE protocol was clearly in effect. They wanted to get me down and off of the mountain as fast as possible.

Of equal importance was that our weather window was closing. The high pressure system we’d been enjoying for the last two weeks was about to end. The guides most definitely did not want to get stuck in a situation where we had to wait several days before being able to fly off the mountain.

By 11 AM on the 22nd – just 8 hours after we’d returned to Camp 4 in the wee hours of the morning – we were on the move once again, having already eaten a hearty breakfast and broken down camp.

All eyes were on me.

During the events of the previous night, it had been suggested that perhaps I was merely exhausted. Perhaps it wasn’t HACE. I recall the guides discussing administering dexamethasone but decided that even if it was HACE, my case was not yet severe enough to warrant its usage. Also, once “dex” is given to a climber, it more or less makes the diagnosis official, opening the entire matter to the scrutiny of the National Park Service. My case was still firmly in the hands of American Alpine Institute guides Andrew, Andy and Tad. And that’s the way we all preferred it remain.

Merely exhausted though? I was not exhausted. At least not yet.

As we walked out of Camp 4 towards the West Buttress ridge, Tad was behind me once again. Unlike just a handful of hours earlier when I was carrying a much lighter backpack, I was now fully loaded as were all other members of the expedition. Had I been exhausted to the point of severe ataxia, I would not have muscularly recovered so quickly and performed as well as I did during the trip back to Camp 3 in the coming hours.

“Looking strong, Mark. That’s what I like.”

It took a little while before I had full confidence that my legs were going to do what I wanted them to do, particularly with the added weight I was carrying on my back. I didn’t want to stumble and fall on an airy ridge traverse any more than I did during our descent of the Autobahn. But once my early worries melted away, I felt every bit as rock solid as I had during our journey from Camp 3 up to Camp 4 several days earlier.

With every few hundred feet in lost elevation during the descent, I got stronger and stronger. Soon enough, we were back on the fixed lines, steeply heading downhill even as other teams headed up, hoping to grab a shot at the summit before the approaching weather system brought the 2015 climbing season to a close.

One upwards-bound team from Colorado paused on the fixed ropes as the result of a bottleneck above them as our team paused due to one of my teammates struggling a bit with the downhill terrain.

I was exactly even with a gentleman from the Colarado team, each of us dug into the 55 degree slope with ice axes planted as my teammate swore up an f-bomb laden storm. Our protocol had been “pink team stop” or “pink team go” depending on the situation as a way of signaling our intentions to our rope mates. “Stop” if you needed to stop for whatever reason and “go” once you were ready to move again.

The Colorado team dude was kind of looking at me with some amusement over the profane outburst of my teammate before I sarcastically and loudly blurted out … “That’s not one of our predetermined communications!”

This generated a laugh from the Colorado guy after which we had a brief joking conversation. It was the first time I had talked all day. My speech pattern was fine, my humor had returned and I was fully mentally and physically present.

Not exhausted.

In the late afternoon, sometime right around the time we reached Camp 3, it started snowing. The scene at 14,200 feet was a little disorienting with all of us trying to figure where everything was in the increasing snowfall.

A couple of tents went up and we had a rendezvous with American Alpine Institute Team 7, which was still on its way up. During our meet-up, there was a big discussion about whether we should rest until morning at Camp 3 or depart at midnight, making for another quick turn-around. My unequivocal vote was to stay put. We’d had a couple of big days and the position I took feels reasonable even to this day. Why not bask a bit in the glow of victory and just enjoy another couple of days on the mountain free of any stress and pressure? By this point, I’d been over 14,000 feet for a week and felt I was “low enough” after all of my troubles at Camp 4 and above. Why turn the down-climb into a death march?

But the guides wanted to move. Andrew pulled me aside and made an offer to let me walk out free of any gear. Clearly, they still wanted to get me lower. Maybe I was demonstrating more of the same variety of lassitude that I’d demonstrated at Denali Pass. I don’t know. But I do know I lost the debate.

I stole a couple hours of sleep in the tent but by midnight we were on the move again, this time bound all the way for base camp at 7,200 feet in what turned into an epic journey through the night.

I balked at the idea of letting the guides carry my gear, telling them that I had climbed the mountain like a man and had no intention of descending like a debutante. I would suffer through this just like everyone else.

The snow had stopped by midnight but the clouds remained thick and it felt like night as we began our descent. I don’t remember the exact time but it was nearly pitch black when we arrived at Camp 2 at 11,200 feet and retrieved some cached gear. The darkness was partially the result of the cloud cover and partially the result of Camp 2 being set up in the shade and shadows.

Camp 1 came a few hours later as light began to return to Denali. By now I was tired. Exhausted. And my head had this eery feeling of having had all of the pressure of high elevation released – like my brain was shrinking back to size. Maybe they were right in pushing down even when I felt like I was OK up at Camp 3. I now just wanted to sleep and drifted off into unconsciousness even as we sat there during a break.

When I awoke from my nap, Team 6 was on the move once again and I scrambled to take my position on the last rope team. My feet began to hurt as I felt forming blisters – something I’d successfully avoided for more than two weeks. My legs were tired and weakening but I soldiered on along with my teammates. This is what physical exhaustion feels like. It was in stark contrast to what happened to me way up high on Denali just 36 hours ago.

Eventually, we arrived at the base of Heartbreak Hill and the small ascent back to Base Camp where the guides had confirmed K2 Aviation would be picking us up in short order. Every step was an ordeal but we soon crossed the mythical finish line. I removed my boots and socks to let my feet breathe while we waited for the glacier planes. What I saw was gross and trench-foot like.

We drank some Alaskan Amber beers that we had cached at Base Camp as I dozed off on my feet only waking up when I started to fall.

And then we were gone. Back up in the plane and soon landing at K2 Aviation in Talkeetna, Alaska. Elevation 358 feet. 20,000 feet lower in just over a day and a half.

It was over.

June 23, 2015 – 1:30 PM – K2 Aviation, Talkeetna

“Hey everyone. This is Andrew from Denali Team 6 here in sunny Talkeetna. We left Camp 3 at 14,200 feet last night after Tad whipped up some brinner – breakfast and dinner – and got everyone food and a couple hours of sleep after our descent from High Camp. Everyone was psyched to move down the mountain to Base Camp and so we left at midnight and showed up at Base Camp at 11:00 AM and promptly flew out at 12:30. So we’re here in sunny Talkeetna sorting through some group gear. Pretty psyched to have bare feet in the grass and smelling greenery. Looking forward to getting everyone lodging for the night and meeting up for dinner.”

“So a super successful trip starting with seven climbers and finished with seven climbers … every single one of them hitting the top. Really proud of these guys. Great trip. Definitely one I’ll remember for a long time. This is Andrew for Denali Team 6 back safe out of the mountains.”

“So long.”

The next few days are a blur of sleeping, walking to town on aching feet for food and spirits and sharing pictures with teammates. Eventually I began to feel more like myself again and arranged for transportation to the airport for a red eye to Chicago out of Anchorage.

For much of my adult life, I was a police officer. And as a former cop, my mind still likes to gather evidence to reach the most logical explanation. I spent a lot of time over the last seven years thinking about what happened to me way up there on top of the continent. Many – if not most – of the symptoms of HACE were there but I still had a hard time admitting it to myself. Because, of course, if it was HACE, that would mean I could never go so high again. Never to the Himalayas or to Aconcagua. It is one thing to be stricken with something unexpectedly and quite another to willfully create a situation that could put your own life as well as the lives of others at risk.

But the smoking gun for me and the one thing that has ultimately convinced me it was HACE started as the smallest and most inconsequential of matters.

Sometime after our arrival at Camp 4 at 17,200 feet as I struggled with that monstrous headache and blurry vision, I also began to notice a small toothache. In the overall picture of physical maladies, it was more of annoyance … a fly buzzing around my head …. than it was an immediate cause for concern as I was dealing with far more serious issues.

In the days and weeks after I got off the mountain, as the rest of me normalized, I started to notice it more and more until finally I made an emergency dentist appointment.

X Rays showed that I had cracked the adhesive cement filling from a root canal procedure done in 2008. Seven years prior. Exceptionally rare, my dentist explained, as root canals rarely fail so long afterwards. It they are going to fail, they will usually fail in the first year or so.

But as I returned for several more appointments with both my regular dentist and a specialist, the answer seemed increasingly obvious even as I was reluctant to fully embrace it.

Everything in my head – from my brain to my gums – had swelled high on Denali. And only one thing – HACE – could explain all of it. The massive headache, the blurred vision, the racing pulse, the ataxia, the slurred speech, the lassitude … and the smoking gun in the whole thing, that cracked root canal.

I never did return to such heights and never shall.

The following year, I met up with a couple of my Denali teammates, Boris and Richard, for a successful climb of 14,411 foot Rainier – my second ascent of that famous mountain, this time via the Emmons Glacier Route. Three years after that, in 2019, I completed a magnificent unguided climb of 14,180 foot Mount Shasta with Boris, making us three for three together on big snowy mountains. And in 2023, I aspire to climb Gunnbjorn Fjeld, Greenland, the highest peak in the Arctic at 12,119 feet.

So what I’m saying is that I learned where my personal ceiling is on that Denali expedition and shall never again test it. And I will never stop being thankful to Andrew, Andy, Tad, Richard and Boris for getting me off the mountain alive. Thankful for getting to see my kids grow up and my parents grow old. Thankful for seven years of memories with my wife and all the life adventures I continue to have.

So long.