Denali West Buttress
Motorcycle Hill, Squirrel Hill, and Windy Corner
From Camp 2, ascend Motorcycle Hill to views of the Peters Basin, then continue up Squirrel Hill’s scenic, exposed flank to the open flats of the Polo Field. Traverse a tricky slope above crevasses at Windy Corner, then make the final, gentle climb to Camp 3.
Route Section: Motorcycle Hill
Quick Stats: Distance = about a mile, Elevation Gain = 800 feet. Time: approximate time from Camp 2 to the top of Motorcycle Hill is about 1.5 hours.
Route Section: Squirrel Hill
Above Motorcycle Hill there is a small break in the slope angle, and the next slope is called Squirrel Hill. From the base of Squirrel Hill, the views down into the Lower Peter’s Glacier Basin and across the Valley to the Father’s and Son’s Wall are breathtaking.
From the crest of Squirrel Hill, we cross a large basin below the West Buttress Direct on the way to Windy Corner.
Route Section: Windy Corner
From the top of Squirrel Hill we traverse across a large glacial basin below the steep couloirs of the Direct West Buttress on the way to Windy Corner. At the far end of the basin we ascend a short slope to Windy Corner and work our way around the sometimes icy and always exposed corner.
There is often fixed protection on the traverse around the corner and the difficulty of this section varies greatly with the amount of snow covering the blue ice at the corner.
Once around the corner we still have a very broken section of glacier to navigate before reaching the easy section leading to Camp 3 at 14,200 feet. The cracks around the corner were responsible for a whole rope team and two solo climbers falling 80 feet into a crevasse during the 2005. AAI guides and climbers were the first on the scene and successfully extracted all members of the team from the crevasse in less than 45 minutes.
Video: Navigating Windy Corner in a snow squall.
