Mount McKinley
June 2004

As a sum of coincidences Samuli Mansikka (25) and Jere Pettersson (23) ended up arranging their Mount McKinley Expedition together after they both had been planning their own trips scheduled for summer 2004. Jere's "Ski Denali" team of three then grew to a party of four but eventually Jere and Samuli were the only ones to find themselves in Kahiltna Base in the beginning of June 2004.

Mount McKinley (6194 m.) which is widely known by it's native Athabascan name Denali is North America's highest mountain thus being one of the 'Seven Summits'. Due to it's northern location it is known to be much colder and more hostile than f.ex. the Himalayan mountains of similar scale. The storms that rise from the sea not more than 100 kilometer South often hammer the mountain for days in a row. Also due to the Northern latitude the barometric pressure on Denali is lower than what it is at the same elevations in the Himalayas. This contributes to smaller amounts of oxygen in comparision.

Samuli and Jere spent 3,5 weeks on the mountain during which they got stuck in storm in two occassions; in Camp I for five days and in 14000ft camp for three days. The first summit attempt had to be aborted just 100 meters before the summit because of the winds that could have easily thrown the climbers off the narrow summit ridge. Throughout planning and succesfull recovery allowed the two to reach the summit two days later in midsummerday's perfect weather.