KTUU.com | Alaska's news and information source | Operation Denali members back from McKinley climb

Operation Denali members back from McKinley climb

by Leyla Santiago
Sunday, June 21, 2009

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- It's their first weekend back from a grueling two-and-a-half week climb up Mt. McKinley.

Operation Denali is the team of wounded soldiers that set out to prove that combat injuries aren't the end of the world -- and they did just that.

The reality of their accomplishment is starting to sink in.

"The mountains are scary," said climber Bob Haines. "They look just menacing because all of the glaciers and the black rock and the white ice."

"We're pretty blessed with really good weather," said climber Dave Shebib.

The team of four wounded soldiers, a wife of a wounded soldier, and a retired military serviceman set out to climb Mt. McKinley on June 1.

"The loads were just so heavy that I was walking on the end of my stump versus normally you're suspended, and so it bruised it up and started causing a lot of nerve pain," said climber Matt Nyman.

But Nyman, a leg amputee, kept moving at a steady pace, inspiring his team.

"Just passing rope teams and the look on people's faces when they saw a tennis shoe on his prosthetic leg -- they just couldn't put two and two together, why this guy was moving up the mountain in a tennis shoe," said Haines.

The going got tough when the group reached higher altitudes.

At 16,000 feet, arm amputee Jon Kuniholm was forced to end his trip because of altitude sickness.

And at 17,000 feet, Nyman was forced to do the same.

"Nauseas and headache and real hard to breathe, started vomiting a little bit," said Nyman.

The decision wasn't easy.

"I knew I had to get down for my safety but it was obviously very difficult for me to not be able to succeed," said Nyman.

With three members left, the team moved forward.

"I had a lot of mixed feelings when we were going up because we only had half the team," said climber Marc Hoffmeister.

Determined to reach the top, Operation Denali attempted to summit on its sixteenth day on the mountain.

"As soon as we started to climb up towards the summit's ridge, the clouds moved in and visibility came down to what they call ‘walking in a ping pong ball,'" said Haines.

"We had one number-one priority when we got out there, and that was to re-enlist Specialist Shebib," said Hoffmeister.

Shebib, injured two years ago in Iraq, re-enlisted on the top of Mt. McKinley -- a moment that only three members of the team will remember.

"In the end only half the team reached the summit, but the whole team in spirit made it," said Hoffmeister. "Same thing with a wounded warrior -- our wounded and our fallen heroes make that sacrifice so that our nation can win its battles, win its wars."

For most on the team, reaching the summit wasn't what meant the most.

"Summit is icing on the cake, the beauty of this journey and one of our goals when we started out," said Hoffmeister. "This journey wasn't just the three weeks on the mountain, it was the entire year."

A year of training and hard work to prove that a combat wound isn't the end of the road.

"On the highest peak of North America -- yeah, a very high accomplishment," said Shebib.

The team says the climb down proved to be quite challenging as well.

Nyman, the leg amputee, had to slow down his pace a bit, and others had to take some of his load.

But the team still finished on schedule, and most said they would do it again.

Contact Leyla Santiago at lsantiago@ktuu.com