Mountain Trip and Denali Dog Sled Expeditions
invite you to experience the wild north side of Denali
 From 1906-1908, Harry Karstens and Charles Sheldon made forays toward the north side of Mount McKinley. Two years later, their reconnaisance paid off when Tom Lloyd,
Charley McGonagall, Billy Taylor, and Pete Anderson left Fairbanks with loaded dogsleds in what was to become known as the Sourdough Expedition of 1910.
These four intrepid pioneers discovered a key pass to access the Muldrow Glacier and pushed up the glacier to a camp at about 11,000 feet. Their legendary 18 hour summit day, fueled by a thermos of coffee and a bag of doughnuts, dragging a 14 foot sruce pole, is legendary. They picked their way through icefalls and up Karstens Ridge to plant the pole on the North Summit of Denali.
Mountain Trip is excited to offer a select few climbers the opportunity to get a taste of what the original pioneers experienced. We have joined forces with Denali Dog Sled Expeditions, which operates under a concession contract with Denali National Park out of the Earth Song Lodge in Healy, AK to enable you to
This will be a challenging trip for the fit mountaineer. The first day will be spent learning to mush a dog team with Jon Nierenberg, a professional musher and owner of Denali Dog Sled Expeditions. Jon has been mushing in the area since 1982 and in the Park since 1985. Depending on conditions, the next 4-6 days will be spent travelling through the northern portion of Denali National Park with climbers mushing their own teams of dogs. We will say good bye to our sled dogs at Cache Creek and hike up McGonnagal Pass to our cache of mountain food and supplies that we sent in earlier in the winter. From this point we will climb through the icefalls of the Muldrow Glacier and up Karstens Ridge to our high camp on the Harper Glacier. After summit day, we will descend the West Buttress Route to fly out in ski planes from the Southeast Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier.
Any climb of the north side of Denali is a serious undertaking. Using sled dog teams to get us across the tundra will add an element of authentic Alaska that is not necessarily found on most Denali expeditions. By traveling early in the season, we should be able to cross the McKinley River while it is still frozen and eliminate one of the most hazardous elements of a north side climb. Early season will mean colder temperatures, but this factor is largely mitigated by modern clothing systems. When traveling with the dog sleds, you will also have access to a heated tent. The timing of this trip puts us on schedule to summit about the same time as our early season West Buttress expeditions.
 The remote nature of this expeditions requires us to be very selective in who we enlist on the team, and team size will be limited to four climbers and two guides. This is an expedition ulike any other on Denali and we are very excited to offer it. Please call us to inquire about specifics and definitely check out Jon's website at www.earthsonglodge.com
Denali Sourdough Expedition Dates:
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