Denali 2018 Success!

Denali 2018

  One could say Denali is the 3rd Pole. With Brutally cold temps and Nasty winds Denali never makes things easy. Climbing Denali becomes a major challenge for Type 1 Diabetic Tom Bicksler as he prepares to try and use the New Medtronic 670G Insulin pump in Freezing temps. Keeping Batteries and Insulin from freezing is the only way. The key to success was wearing the Pump under 4 layers of clothing and using my body heat to keep things above 32F. If Insulin Freezes it can not be thawed out and re-used. Frozen insulin would put my life in jepordy and deffinetly cause the expedition to stop early. I managed to keep my meds from freezing and the expedition moved quite well.  With heavy loads on our backs and on our sleds we marched through the deep snow. It always seems that the length of the expedition can be extremly long due to weather conditions.

  Denali 2018 was right in the middle. We arrived just after a huge storm front and left with a huge storm front moving in. Daily snow and wind kept the endless sled dragging very interesting. It seemed like the Tent was going to be our forever home. Some how we just kept moving forward. Digging out tent sites, Building snow walls, Melting snow for drinking water, and defrosting Cliffbars became a daily routine.

  The expedition progressed onward and kept a steady pace. Layers on, Layers off. Dancing around crevasses in zero visibility. Caching food made our sleds much lighter. We seemed to be in sink with the weather Gods as they granted the Bicksler7 expedition with a beautiful Summit day on Friday June 8th. Our summit was filled with Joy and amazing views. Tom Bicksler the T1D had made the summit at 20,310elv..

  Our journey back down to basecamp at 7800elv was filled with lots of Wind and Snow! Again the the decision was easy, "Keep Those Legs Moving". Snow and clouds keep the planes from picking us up at basecamp the day we arrived but were able to catch our flight off the glacier the very next morning. Overall the expedition was a huge success and Id like to thank everyone that supported our dreams.