Blue View - Climbing Denali
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In the tiny town of Talkeetna, Alaska, no one ever expects to sleep in on a spring or early summer morning. Just after dawn, weather permitting, the peaceful quiet is broken by the roar of bush pilots’ engines warming up and taxiing to the runway in preparation for takeoff. There will be dozens of flights throughout the day as the pilots ferry climbers to Kahiltna Glacier, the starting point for most Denali ascents.
Each year, approximately 1200 climbers attempt to climb Denali, North America’s tallest mountain. Fully 90% of those 1200 climbers begin their climb at Kahiltna Glacier, on their way to the West Buttress route (nicknamed the Butt), the easiest and most accessible route to the summit.
Kahiltna Glacier, aka Kahiltna International, at an altitude of 7,200 feet is a huge block of ice two miles wide and forty miles long. Once you extract yourself and your tent, sleeping bag, food, stove, fuel, polar clothing, and climbing gear from the tiny plane, it’s a mere 13,120 foot climb from the glacier to the summit of Denali, and depending on how lucky you are with the weather, it’ll probably take between two weeks and a month to get up and back. During the prime climbing period of May and June, you can expect to be in the company of a few hundred other climbers, all queuing up for the climb. On average, just over half of those attempting the climb will make it to the top.
The West Buttress route requires no technical climbing, and can be walked up, assuming you are in good shape, have the right gear, aren’t swept away by an avalanche, fall into a crevasse, develop altitude sickness, go into cardiac arrest, get caught in a storm, or get frostbitten - to name a few annoyances that might spoil your trip. Some have said that the West Buttress has about the same level of difficulty as a long walk in the snow, but as one of my favorite authors puts it:
“That is more or less true, but it's also true that if you should, say, trip on a bootlace at the wrong moment during that walk, you will probably die. From 16,000 feet to 17,000 feet, for instance, the route follows the crest of a knife-edge ridge that presents a two-thousand-foot drop on one side and a three-thousand-foot drop on the other. Furthermore, even the flattest, most benign-looking terrain can be riddled with hidden crevasses, many of which are big enough to swallow a Greyhound bus, no problem.”
— Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains by Jon Krakauer
It wasn’t until the beginning of the twentieth century that anyone attempted to climb Denali. The first to come close to reaching the summit was the 1912 expedition of Hershel Parker and Elmore Browne, which began in Seattle during winter. They sailed by steamship to Seward, then had to traverse hundreds of difficult miles by dogsled, most of which required breaking trail through deep snow. It took them until May to finally arrive at the base of Mt. McKinley, as it was then known.
They worked their way up the mountain, making successively higher camps. On June 28, they made camp at 16,615 and prepared for the final leg. The next morning was clear and cold, and the two men set out at dawn, but before reaching the summit, a storm slammed into the upper mountain. In near whiteout conditions, they were forced to retreat back to their camp. They waited a day for the the storm to pass before making another attempt, but were again forced back, and at that point, with food and fuel running low, made the decision to descend the mountain. The very next day following their exit from the mountain slopes, a 7.4 magnitude earthquake occurred, opening up dozens of crevasses in the glacier they had used to climb and descend a large section of the mountain.
A year later, using the same route as Parker and Browne, a four man team led by Hudson Stuck, an Episcopalian priest, and Harry Karstens were able to reach the top. Because of the damage done by the previous year’s earthquake, their progress was much slower, but they eventually made it to the summit on June 7. All four men, particularly Stuck, suffered from altitude sickness. Stuck was the last in line, and fell unconscious as he reached the high point. On their way down, they discovered gear left by Parker and Browne the year before - a mere 200 feet from the summit.
It was almost 20 years before Denali was climbed again, but in the 1950s, the pace picked up. As of 2018, 45,441 climbers had attempted climb, and of those, 23,426 successfully reached the summit. The most unusual ascent was made in 1979 by a five person group led by Joe Redington, and including a very young Susan Butcher (the same Susan Butcher who later won four Iditarod Races). The five, along with two teams of dogs, two sleds and all the necessary food and gear, were ferried to Kahiltna Glacier. They followed the West Buttress route and successfully mushed their way to the top of Denali.
Between 1903 and 2022, 126 climbers had perished on the mountain. Some died of altitude sickness, some from hypothermia (the lowest recorded temperature on Denali was -100 degrees F), others from avalanches, but the largest number of deaths, 45%, were due to falls, many of which were falls into crevasses. Almost two thirds of all the deaths occurred during the descent.
The summer of 1967 saw the deadliest disaster in Denali’s history when seven of Joe Wilcox’s twelve member team died during the worst storm in 100 years. The climbers began their ascent on June 22. They slowly made their way up the mountain, establishing camps as they progressed, finally reaching 18,000 feet where they set up their high camp. Four members of the team reached the summit on July 15, 1967, and returned to the high camp, joining the other eight who were resting there. The next day, July 16th, the four who had reached the top plus one other man suffering from altitude sickness headed down to a lower camp at 15,000 feet, while one man stayed at the high camp, and the other six set out for the summit. That evening, before they made it to the top, a storm hit, and the six were forced to bivouac for the night on the upper slopes.
The team leader made a radio call to the ranger station on July 17th, indicating that they had made it to the top and were heading down. That was the last communication from the men. Shortly after the call ended, the storm worsened significantly. Weather service models indicated that winds may have been as high as 300 mph(!), probably the worst ever experienced by mountaineers anywhere, and not survivable. A rescue team went up the mountain when the storm abated and found the frozen bodies of three of the men, but the other four were never located.
So, what are the odds of dying on Denali? It’s 1 in 357.
For comparison, I found a list of the lifetime odds of dying from a few other selected causes:
Odds of dying from any cause: 1 in 1
Odds of dying from heart disease: 1 in 6
Odds of dying from cancer: 1 in 7
Odds of dying in a motor vehicle accident: 1 in 93
Therefore, I guess one might conclude that you’re more likely to die driving to Denali than climbing it.
If you are interested in more information about climbing Denali, the National Parks Service has a great website covering everything from planning the expedition to the gear you’ll need here.
See you next week…