The Mountain wins again.

I tracked Richard's signal beacon as his team made a carry and cache around Windy Corner. The signal lingered for a day back at 11,000 feet, then progressed to the big staging camp at 14,000. All was normal as they seemed to rest there for a few days. Then they made the first carry up the headwall, an unforgiving 600 foot incline of nearly vertical ice. A fixed line limits the risk to those beneath you, but nothing can diminish the animal desire required to claw pack and person upward by ice axe, toe spikes, and ascender. Richard's beacon signaled a point at the top of the wall where his team cached their loads before returning down to camp at 14. In due order they moved to high camp at 17,000 feet, the highest point his beacon would report from.
  I spoke with Richard the other day after many exchanged voice messages. This is what he told me.
  A classic Denali storm rolled in soon after they reached high camp. 80 mph winds combined with -25 degree F temperatures to sequester the team in their tents for 3 days. He spoke of using an ice axe to claw his way from tent to the can they used to deficate in. The desire or ability to eat were greatly curbed. Sleep was manifestly compromised.
  The winds subsided a bit on the fourth morning and the now stir-crazy team decided to attempt the summit. I've been trapped at high camp under difficult circumstances, and I can tell you the decision to attempt the summit eventually has more to do with one's desire to go home than any stilted sense of conquest. The team delayed leaving high camp to allow another expedition to lead out ahead of them, breaking trail through four feet of fresh fallen snow.  But winds picked up again as they ascended Denali Pass, the site of that mountain's greatest tragedies. Falls on Denali Pass have been so numerous that the Park Service installed fixed lines to offer protection to teams.  Still, many groups choose not to use them, unwilling to incur the delays of clipping off and on as each member of the rope team passes the anchors securing the fixed lines.
     Richard's group used the fixed lines. As a guided climb it would have been quite unusual had they not. Fortunately the group breaking trail ahead of them also used the fixed lines. As the lead team neared the crest of Denali Pass a sudden blast of wind (estimated by Richard to be approximately 90 mph) knocked them all off their feet. They hung by their harnesses from the fixed line until each member gathered himself up, then reversing direction to head back to high camp. Richards team wisely chose to also retreat back to their tents.
  Another three days passed as the storm continued. By the time it subsided there was no will among team members to attempt the summit. They broke camp and started down the mountain. It is suppose to be easier to go downhill, but one often does so in a capacity greatly diminished by a factor of time spent in high altitude. In Jon Krakauer's remarkable book Into Thin Air he includes the following account of this degradation.
"Most nights I'd wake up three or four times gasping for breath, feeling like I was suffocating. Cuts and scrapes refused to heal. My appetite vanished and my digestive system, which required abundant oxygen to metabolize food, failed to make use of much of what I forced myself to eat; instead my body began consuming itself for sustenance. My arms and legs gradually began to wither to sticklike proportions. "
It is a point worth noting that Krakauer is describing the effects of surviving at an elevation of 15,000 feet. Richard and his team spent seven days at 17,000 feet. What's more, the sum total of equipment carried up in two efforts would be taken down in only one. So heavy were the loads that Richard broke through a cornice at one point, dangling from the rope that joined all as one. He spoke of dehydration and his legs turning to jelly. He told me of mutinous contempt for their lead Guide. They suffered onward for 27 hours to reach the snow landing strip on the Kahiltna Glacier, the point from which they would be extricated from an adventure that had transformed to ordeal. At three  o'clock that afternoon a pair of small ski-planes lifted off with Richard and his team aboard.
  I listened to Richard tell his story, sharing in the disappointment. Even now, three months after the fact, he sounded exhausted. The swagger so evident in his attitude prior to the climb had been beaten out of him. Richard told me the one consolation he took away was the vindication of his training. "I felt strong and capable as the challenge of each day was greater than the one before," he commented. This much is no doubt true. I also tend to believe, had he gotten his shot, Richard would have stood on the summit of Denali. But I wouldn't blame him if he never tried again. There is a long list of world-class climbers who have never been able to reach North Americas highest summit. Denali is a big, moody, frozen SOB. Still, I had to ask.
  "Will you go back," I queried.
Richard to took a deep breath and, in what sounded like the first time he has answered that question out loud, said "yes."