Skiing Denali?

[frank4short]

Thinking about trying to ski denali next season. Just trying to put a little info together before committing to it. So basically looking for anyone with first hand info of the messner couloir or orient express (or any other viable ski descent line). What's the skiing like in terms of technical difficulty, did you climb the route you skied & had you any other major difficulties in doing it?

[hemas]

Search, JONG...

Or stick to UKC .

[frank4short]

Bin there done that mostly just getting BS threads on the worlds hardest lines, etc. the occasional post about it referencing some youtube or movie clip. Basically that i could find there is no single informative reference thread on the subject. So now go crawl back under your rock & don't come out until next winter.

[Meathelmet]

Damn, frank. The your interwebz is broken so that you can only access TGR?
Pity,lot of good stuff in the american website, Google.
There you could access countless topos,trip reports,pics,maps and writups of every kind.
You could propably even find this one guys, Poopchuter or straightchuter or whatevers awesome writeups and pics. You could propably even find his website with his contact info there and write directly to him.


But,alas, pity that you cant access the info. Pity indeed. But do you have a local library that has internet access? Maybe try that?

[AKPogue]

If you want to access us google from another country you need to type in us google in google otherwise even if you put in www.google.com you will automatically be directed to that countries google site so you won't get the same search you would in the us and vice versa.

[hemas]

Bin there done that mostly just getting BS threads on the worlds hardest lines.

I suck at SEARCH!

You've been lurkin' here long enough to know better.

[StraightChuter]

I've skied the Messner and Orient Express and thought they were both excellent and very skiable, although they are 99.9% condition dependant. When/if they have snow on them, the main issue is the altitude, but if they are glaze blue ice, forget it. Alaska ice is like no other and is pretty much unskiable as it is so hard.

Denali is well set-up for skiing as you can do lots of short day trips from the 14.3 camp. If you are planning on skiing from the summit, I'd camp at 14.3 and do it in a day - that way you don't have to haul loads to 17 and risk spending many days there.

The first two weeks of June seem to be the magic time to do it.

[Dhelihiker]

God forbid someone ask a skiing related question on TGR.

Dont worry Frank half of these douchebags only ski on the internet and some day they will take a BC class and get out there too.

Good luck on your trip, that is something I will do someday as well. Im going to wait until Im 50 years old, Im hoping it will make me feel young again. 20 years to go!!

[_Aaron_]

Ski the Wickersham Wall. Ive always wondered what 14K or so of vert would be like.

Oh and dont forget a TR.