Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina Local News
Climber rescued from 20,000-foot mountain — 2 days after partner dies in snow cave
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A climber was rescued near the peak of the highest mountain in North America — two days after his climbing partner died inside their snow cave at 19,600 feet.
National Park Service photo
A climber was rescued near the peak of the highest mountain in North America — two days after his climbing partner died inside their snow cave, officials said.
The climbers were part of a three-man team from Malaysia that embarked on an extended Denali summit push that left them “exhausted and hypothermic” late Tuesday, May 28, Denali National Park & Preserve said in a news release.
The climbers first sent an SOS to mountaineering rangers from the 20,310-foot summit at 1 a.m., saying they were “hypothermic and unable to descend the mountain,” officials said in a May 29 news release.
They communicated back and forth with rangers until 3:30 a.m., when they told rangers “they planned to descend to the ‘Football Field’, a flat expanse at 19,600-foot elevation,” officials said in the release. But after that transmission, rangers stopped hearing from them — and the location of the device did not change.
“Variable cloud cover on Tuesday morning prevented the park’s high-altitude helicopter from reaching the mountain from Talkeetna,” so rangers contacted the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center for help, officials said.
The Alaska Air National Guard launched an emergency rescue mission helicopter at 10 a.m. and spotted two of the three climbers between 19,000 and 20,000 feet just before noon, officials said. A climbing guide spotted the third climber below them near Zebra Rocks at 18,600 feet.
“Although winds were relatively calm on Tuesday, several stagnant cloud layers prevented the park’s high-altitude helicopter from reaching the climbers safely,” officials said.
Rescuers tried again when the clouds cleared slightly at 5 p.m., and while the summit was still covered in clouds, the helicopter was able to reach a camp at 14,200 feet where mountaineering patrol had been treating another pair of climbers with frostbite injuries, officials said. Rescuers evacuated the frostbitten climbers and transferred the more severely injured climber to an air ambulance for more advanced care.
By 9 p.m., one of the three Malaysian climbers had descended to a camp at 17,200-feet “with severe frostbite and hypothermia,” where rangers were able to evacuate him, officials said.
Then clouds began to build back up again and high winds started whipping the upper mountain, officials said.
Rescuers were on standby through most of Wednesday and Thursday as the two remaining climbers bivvied in a crude snow cave, where they had been since late Tuesday night, officials said.
At 10:30 p.m. Thursday, the park’s high-altitude helicopter pilot dropped a duffle bag of survival gear near their snow cave on the Football Field. He spotted one of the climbers waving at him, but winds were still too strong to haul them off the mountain.
The weather had improved enough by 6 a.m. Friday, May 31, for the pilot and another ranger to return to the Football Field to haul them out with a rescue basket attached by a rope to the helicopter’s belly, officials said.
As they rescued the surviving climber, he told them his partner had died in their snow cave about two days earlier, officials said.
The surviving climber climbed into the basket, was flown to the Kahiltna Basecamp at 7,200 feet and evacuated to the Talkeetna State Airport, where he was transferred to an air ambulance, officials said.
Officials will release the identity of the climber who died after notifying his family of his death. Rangers plan to recover his body in the next few days.
“Memorial Day weekend is the start of the busiest two weeks of the Denali mountaineering season,” officials said in the May 29 release. “As of Wednesday morning, there are 506 climbers attempting climbs on Denali. So far this season, an additional 117 climbers have come and gone, 17 of whom reached the mountain’s summit, equating to a 15% summit rate.”
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Brooke Baitinger
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