Denali · May 2025 · 6 climbers · no guide service

Limits are invitations. Denali only accepts the ones you prepared for.

The air taxi drops you on the Kahiltna Glacier, turns around and flies back to Talkeetna. From that moment, every mistake you packed comes up the mountain with you.

The film shows what the next 21 days felt like for six of us, without a guide service. The cold. The waiting in the tent. And summit day, when all six of us walked out of high camp. Did all six make it to the top?

What the film can't show is everything that happened before the glacier. It's in Koen's field notes, and it's the reason we got up and back down.

Watch the film on YouTube 33 minutes, filmed on the mountain. Read Koen's field notes ↓

It starts at home, months earlier. We packed 947 pounds for a plane that takes 615. Koen's field notes show how we trained, what we ate for 500 dollars without weighing a single meal, how we calculated every cost and planned every day, and the rope-team rules we agreed on before anyone was tired. Plus the three things we bought that turned out to be wasted money.

None of that works without people you trust on the same rope, and finding them is the hardest part of any expedition. No training plan fixes it. That's what the community around the field book is for: challenging each other, connecting over crazy stories and brutal adventure-specific workouts, and bonds stronger than climbing ropes.

Two pages are open below. The rest of the notes, and the people you might rope up with, are for the first 1,000.

  1. Note 01 What Denali actually costFor everyone who thought "I could never afford that." All 17 lines, and the 6 that only show up in Alaska Open
  2. Note 02 46 questions before you book the air taxiWith the number that tells you if your answer is good enough Open
  3. Note 03 The rest of the notesThe whole field book, and a group for everyone who "doesn't even have a team." First 1,000 Lead Climbers, closes November 30. Sealed

The bush plane drops you on a glacier and leaves.
From that moment everything you eat, melt, carry and decide is yours.

01What Denali actually cost

All 17 lines one person paid, the six costs that only appear once you land in Alaska, and what your flight, gear and insurance run on top. A guided trip is 9,800 to 19,000 dollars, and neither figure includes those three.

Done. It is in your inbox, and here it is straight away.

Download the breakdown

Want to work out your own number instead? The calculator does it with your team size, your flight and your gear.

02The Summit-Ready Checklist

Forty-six questions to ask before you go, each with the number or the rule that tells you whether your answer is good enough. Training, gear, food, cold, team rules, route, the mental game, and the descent.

Done. It is in your inbox, and here it is straight away.

Download the checklist

Everything you carry up, you carry up the same slope more than once.
947 pounds packed, 615 allowed on the plane. What you leave behind is decided months earlier, at home.

One thing none of this is

It is not a case for going cheap. Part of that money buys safety, and the breakdown says exactly which lines those are.

A helicopter on Denali is possible, but rare and weather dependent, and never something you can plan on. The people who would carry you down are volunteers with families. Do the smaller mountains first, in order. Prepared, you can do almost anything, and that is the whole argument.

Six of us. Twenty-one days. May 2025.

Denali, 6,190 metres, one of the Seven Summits and one of the coldest major mountains on Earth. No guide service. Our own permit, our own food, our own budget, and our own decisions about when to move and when to sit still.

Here is what we learned.

Note 03 · sealed

Lead Climbers

On lead, nobody above you holds the line. You climb first, and the people behind you follow your rope.

Training harder fixes a lot on Denali. It doesn't find you a rope team. So the first 1,000 people who get The Must-Have Denali Field Notes also get a year in the group where we train side by side and where teams find each other.

€29 First 1,000 only · founding price until 30 November · then €39
  • →The whole Must-Have Denali Field Notes: every line with buy against rent, and the order you pay in so pulling out costs you less
  • →The food plan: 28 breakfasts, 28 lunches and 25 dinners for 500 dollars, without weighing a meal
  • →The level check that turns your condition into a date you can put in a calendar
  • →A year in the group: a shared training leaderboard and the chat where rope teams form
  • →Stay for year two at the same €29

You'll have to trust us on this one, but not really. One month, full refund. Just mail connect@koendarras.com. Your spot on the rope goes to the next climber.

The rope drops this fall. Leave your address and you hear it first.

Save me a spot on the rope