Spike goes for a light load. Photo: Dave Hahn

And we had a great climb. In my memory it was the quintessential late-season McKinley experience. We had difficulty, uncertainty, delay, solitude, splendor, camaraderie, deprivation, and a little luck... and, after three weeks, a heck of a time getting down the mountain, which was partly why we had the place all to ourselves. The winter had been thrifty when it came to leaving snow on the Alaska Range and as a result, the lower reaches of the Kahiltna Glacier were expected to be rough going. In theory, less snow would mean quicker melting of the seasonal "blanket" covering and bridging crevasses. And that was just what we found in real life. Getting down the mountain was tough. One day, in particular, still stands out as about the hardest I've ever worked.

About three hours into the final push toward Base Camp and the airstrip, I remember having to stop when fog rolled in and prevented me from navigating the crevasses and bridges ahead. Even though we were only about two hours from Base Camp under "normal" conditions and the gang wanted badly to be eating Sparky Burgers in Talkeetna, I just stopped. These weren't normal conditions and everybody pretty well knew that I needed to see where I was going to get through the break-ups. Without a word to anybody, I dropped my pack and sat on it.

I was grateful when Dave Mahre, my hero and assistant guide, brought his rope even with mine, and didn't say a word either. People who work with Dave get to call him "Spike." He was nearly 70 years old on that trip and had seen plenty enough in his years to know just what I was doing and why. By the time Fred Alldredge guided in the final rope team with Laura anchoring it, he was laying down on his pack snoozing.

As Fred got out from under his 80-pound pack and settled it on the snow, I looked at his sled and saw that he'd taken the toilet bag from our last camp. "Good old Fred," I thought, since it was a heavy and unpopular burden. I was only vaguely curious as to why he hadn't already hucked it into one of the hundred open crevasses we'd already encountered since leaving that camp. It wasn't worth cluttering the silence to ask though. The fog and its delay of our progress were of much greater importance, anyway.