Denali's Howl: The Deadliest Climbing Disaster on America's Wildest Peak

by Andy Hall

  The expedition would battle their way to the top of the ridge over the next five days, each man making multiple trips, either breaking trail or relaying supplies up from the lower camp while the advance teams installed fixed lines on the steep slope. Unlike the ropes that link climbers as they move through crevasse fields or up lesser slopes, these lines would remain in place. Climbers ascending and descending the steep ridge could clip their harnesses to the line to prevent falls and use it as a handhold when needed.

  The fixed line was anchored to the ridge by driving aluminum stakes, called pickets, into the snow and attaching them with carabiners.

  The climbers used polypropylene water ski rope, a seemingly odd choice but cheap, light, and black in color, so it would stand out against the snow. Unlike manila rope—which had fallen out of use by climbers after World War II—braided nylon, and sheathed climbing rope, polypropylene doesn’t absorb water, has very little elasticity, and doesn’t give when tugged on, offering solid support when used as a handline. The downside to using it in mountaineering is its rare but potentially lethal tendency to shatter in extreme cold.

  Elsewhere on the mountain, where fixed lines weren’t necessary, the Colorado group climbed with gold-colored three-strand twisted nylon rope. The Wilcox ropes were kern-mantle construction, with a red, braided outer sheath.

  Wind and snow halted all travel on Saturday, July 8, and filled the trail between Camp IV and Camp V, requiring it to be broken all over again. The following day, the advance team gained just 600 vertical feet beyond Camp V. As they turned for the descent after the frustratingly slow day, they saw the eight packers unloading and settling into the tight real estate of Camp V. Suddenly twin avalanches sprouted from either side of the ridge beneath the camp and rumbled down the slope. The men in camp felt the entire ledge slump when the snow let loose.

  The ascent of Karstens Ridge was the most arduous part of the route, rising 4,000 feet over 2 miles, and whether breaking trail, placing the fixed lines, or relaying supplies from lower on the ridge, no task was easy. At 12,800 feet the climbers overcame the steepest pitch on the entire route, a 40-foot-long, 50-degree-steep stretch of white ice. This was where the ranger Elton Thayer had fallen 1,000 feet to his death while descending with three companions after reaching the summit via the South Buttress back in 1954.

  The strenuous effort was tempering the bonds between group members.

  Early in the assault on Karstens, Russell had challenged Schiff in front of the others. “Anshel, there’s a rumor that you are only carrying half loads,” he said. Schiff hadn’t been one of the stronger climbers and had continued his efforts to carry less weight until Russell’s accusations rang in the cold air. Schiff, an introvert who rarely spoke during the group debates, kept silent. He preferred to present his opinion to Wilcox one-on-one. But Clark didn’t, defending Schiff, who had joined to conduct scientific studies and had never intended to climb that high, telling Russell that he shouldn’t expect others to match his physical abilities.

  What had set off the “unregimentable,” volatile John Russell probably had more to do with his own demons than Schiff’s physical abilities. Russell’s childhood friend and early climbing companion Dave Cooley said Russell hated weakness, especially his own. Cooley grew up with “Richie” Russell and learned to climb at his side. Richie began going by his first name, John, after leaving home. One thing he couldn’t change was the weakness that plagued him at high altitude. “Richie was worthless over ten thousand feet,” Cooley says. “He could barely function, and it made him angry.” Though Russell knew he would get sick, he climbed to altitude time and time again, trying to beat the sickness. Cooley said Russell never did beat it. When I asked why a man who knew he suffered from altitude sickness would attempt to climb the highest mountain in North America, Cooley said, “He wanted to beat it, proving he could go to the top of McKinley; that was the way he’d want to prove it to himself. That was Richie Russell.”

  Paul Schlichter recalled that later in the day it was Walt Taylor who smoothed things over with Schiff. “In my mind [Walt] was the most mature, had the best leadership qualities,” Schlichter said. “He was a really good guy, he was a very straightforward guy. He said, ‘Anshel, you’re not carrying the loads like the rest of us are. Don’t try to fake it and pretend like you are. If you can’t do it, that’s OK, we understand that, we can help out.’”

  Schiff had started the climb in poor shape and continued to suffer from chronic indigestion in secret. The inability to digest food, or even simply a reluctance to eat, can deplete the body of energy anywhere, but at high altitude, low oxygen content and temperature add to the physical demands, making adequate nourishment critically important. Modern-day climbers often lose weight during guided Denali climbs despite consuming 3,000 to 5,000 calories per day. The Wilcox Expedition meals averaged 4,505 calories per day—plenty to sustain the climber in the conditions they faced, but only if the meals were consumed.

  Walt Taylor probably calmed Russell down as well. The two men had bonded when rangers busted them while scaling the wall inside the Mount Rainier Visitor Center and the friendship flourished on the climb in spite of their contrasting personalities. Walt was a “witty humorist, tactful conciliator and lubricator of organizational gears,” Joe Wilcox wrote in his memoir. Russell was confrontational and “wanted to be viewed as independent,” according to Wilcox. Physically, the two men were well matched, and until they reached the upper mountain, both were among the strongest climbers in the group.

  Jerry Clark and Mark McLaughlin had been friends before the climb, and that bond continued. They climbed together when they could and often tented together. Mark was in superior physical condition but was happy to slow down and let his slower-moving friend set the pace. Short and unassuming Hank Janes gravitated to tall and outgoing Denny Luchterhand. Neither their personalities nor their frames matched, but they spent as much time as they could together both climbing and relaxing in camp. Luchterhand also befriended Walt Taylor, and the two men developed the habit of calling out when they spotted each other. Calls of “Muthah” often echoed back and forth across the icy expanses as the two men maintained this inscrutable dialogue all the way up the mountain.

  Though Steve Taylor had a less promising start, his calm handling of Lewis’s topple into the crevasse revealed unexpected reservoirs of strength and presence of mind. In Wilcox’s opinion, “As the trip progressed he gained confidence and strength. By the time we got to Karstens he was leading many rope teams. On Karstens Ridge I can honestly say that Steve was a stronger climber than I.” He was affected by the altitude but had a strong summit drive.

  But as the ascent quickened on Karstens Ridge the inescapable effects of altitude began to take their toll on everyone. One of the steepest parts of the ridge, known as the Coxcomb, was crusted with wind-packed snow slab and underlain with several feet of powder on July 10. Breaking trail was hellish, but John Russell led for five hours and reached Browne Tower at 14,600 feet before he and his team cached their loads and turned back for Camp V.

  “John gave it all he had for twelve hundred vertical feet. He really burned himself out,” Walt Taylor reported to Wilcox on the morning of July 11. And for several days, “John was not his usual overbearing self.”

  Among what was at times a discordant band of brothers had grown, as a result of their physical exertion in Denali’s thin, remote air, a special kind of enduring bond. Some want no more from life.

  CHAPTER 6

  A RUN FOR IT

  Luchterhand, Janes, Schlichter, and McLaughlin finished breaking trail past Browne Tower at the top of Karstens Ridge and traversed Parker Pass onto the lower Harper Glacier to establish Camp VI at 15,000 feet on Tuesday, July 11, and by the evening eight men had moved up. The team had started gaining altitude at a much faster rate and the resulting fatigue was an increasing factor in their decision making. Everyone rested on Wednesday, but by Thursday,
July 13, the entire team had moved up to the 15,000-foot Camp VI. Several days of clear weather had prevailed, and that evening they began plotting where they would place their high camp and how they would make their summit bid. Along with a fellowship born of arduous mutual endeavor, a sense of urgency grew.

  From Camp VI, the 20,320-foot south summit was visible, just 5,000 feet higher and 5 miles distant. The goal was within striking distance, but here the mountain could be its most vicious. If the weather changed, if whiteout conditions arose, if the wind came howling, the human body had far fewer resources to cope. Obvious symptoms of acute mountain sickness (AMS) were becoming evident in some of the climbers. Wilcox thought Steve Taylor and Schiff were the most likely to be affected, but altitude is the great equalizer in the mountains, treating the strong and weak with equal disdain. Headaches and vomiting are the most recognizable signs; the other symptoms are less obvious, including insomnia, dehydration, lack of appetite, and swollen hands and feet. Though the team had been on the mountain for nearly a month and had been careful to climb high and sleep low to aid acclimatization, inadvertent mistakes may have countered those precautions and fostered AMS.

  Everyone going to high altitude experiences brain swelling, but some are affected more than others. Thin air means less oxygen is available to be absorbed into the bloodstream. The natural way the body copes with hypoxia (inadequate oxygen levels) is for capillaries and other blood vessels in the brain to expand, causing the brain itself to swell, hence the headaches many sufferers describe.

  For most people, the symptoms ease as they become acclimatized to the altitude. For an unfortunate few, AMS can lead to two potentially fatal conditions: high-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE), in which leaky capillaries fill the lungs with fluid; and high-altitude cerebral edema (HACE), where brain capillaries leak, causing dramatic brain swelling. HAPE symptoms include coughing, breathlessness, and the inability to walk uphill and usually appear two to four days after climbing above 10,000 feet. Those suffering from HACE have trouble walking, appear drunk, and suffer extreme exhaustion, drowsiness, and weakness. Both conditions can kill if left untreated, the best treatment being a quick descent below 10,000 feet.

  It had taken four separate advance teams five days to top Karstens Ridge, and most of the difficult work was done above 12,000 feet. Not surprisingly, strenuous activity is a contributor to AMS; so too is carbon monoxide poisoning. The Wilcox team had been cooking in a tent, probably the most common way climbers inadvertently poison themselves. The combination of hard work and cooking inside the tent may have contributed to the symptoms that were becoming apparent in some of the climbers.

  Russell in particular had exhausted himself on the final push up the Coxcomb. He also had been sleeping in the cook tent. Schiff’s indigestion was causing noticeable weight loss, but Jerry Lewis was also clearly losing weight. Jerry Clark and Joe Wilcox both exhibited extreme exhaustion climbing above Camp V on Karstens Ridge. The known remedy for altitude sickness is to descend. However, more than one climber has beaten it, or tried to, by summiting quickly and then retreating to a safe altitude before the symptoms become life threatening.

  The idea of ascending quickly made increasing sense to Wilcox. On Thursday, July 13, he gathered the original members of the Wilcox team in the cook tent after dinner to discuss plans for the summit assault. Light from the late-evening sun filtered through the orange nylon, casting everyone in an orange glow as they let their dinner settle. Heat from the stoves and the men gathered in such close quarters made the tent cozy in spite of the chilly air outside. Clark had been in radio contact with Eielson Visitor Center.

  “The next two days will be perfect,” he reported.

  “Then what?” asked Wilcox.

  “They only have a two-day forecast. I guess they’re just getting it from a radio station.”

  The edge of the southern high-pressure system had arrived, bringing cold, thin air that settled over the mountain and the surrounding area. Highs tend to be big and stationary, often repelling weak lows that try to move in. This one was holding over the range with clear, cool, and almost windless weather beckoning the climbers to make their move.

  Joe Wilcox considered the condition of the men and the weather prediction. It had been mostly clear and moderate since July 10, and it was predicted to hold for two more days. Such conditions don’t last on Denali, and sooner or later the pendulum would swing the other way. If they were going to reach the summit, they had to move quickly.

  “My feeling is that we should make a run for it,” Wilcox announced. “All of us pack up five days of food to eighteen thousand feet and climb to the summit the following day.”

  One of those boisterous discussions followed during which holes were punched in Wilcox’s plan. McLaughlin worried that they were climbing too fast and argued for an intermediate camp at 16,500 to allow for more acclimatization. Luchterhand said rushing to the summit before bringing more supplies up from the Coxcomb cache would leave them without enough food and fuel if they were halted by a bad storm. The expedition members pushed this way and that against Wilcox’s ascent strategy. He was neither defensive nor dismissive, allowing the discussion to continue.

  A consensus was reached: the two Taylors, Schiff, and Russell would remain low for another day and pack enough food to feed ten men for six days from the Coxcomb cache to Camp VI. The other eight men would move up to 18,000 feet, each carrying four days’ worth of food, and go on to the summit on July 15. The other four would move up to the high camp on the fifteenth with three more days of food and make their summit attempt on Sunday, July 16.

  The Colorado men ate in their own tent and had not been part of the meeting. But when Wilcox relayed the plan through the wall of their tent they agreed. Howard Snyder was “a bit apprehensive about depending on the Wilcox group’s food and stoves, since both left a great deal to be desired,” but he decided they could handle it for the two or three days it would take to get to the summit and back to Camp VI. Soon the camp was alive with preparations. They began paring down their gear to the essentials needed for a fast summit turnaround. The cook tent would remain there at 15,000 feet along with other unnecessary gear. They would carry a few pots, two stoves with full fuel tanks, two shovel scoops minus their handles, trail-marking wands, a first aid kit, two gallons of Blazo fuel, and the five-watt CB radio. Each man had a small amount of emergency food and his own personal gear and sleeping bag.

  On the morning of July 14, eight men prepared to ascend the Harper Glacier and establish high camp around 18,000 feet. After the five-day Karstens Ridge ordeal, it looked like a cakewalk: a 3,000-foot ascent spread over 3 miles of hard-packed snow punctuated by two large icefalls. It would be easier going but not without danger, according to Washburn’s guide: “There are a number of treacherous crevasses in this upper section of Harper Glacier, just where one would expect the going to be the best,” he wrote. “The high winds up here often form smooth but very flimsy bridges of soft snow across many of the smaller cracks.”

  The route up the Harper also was rich in history. At 16,000 feet it passed beneath the Sourdough Gully, which Pete Anderson, Billy Taylor, and Charlie McGonagall ascended to reach the top of the north peak in 1910. At 16,400 feet it traversed the plateau separating the Upper and Lower Icefalls, passing through the site of Belmore Browne’s high camp from which he staged his unsuccessful summit bids. Around 17,500 feet, in the middle of the valley, Stuck and Karstens had pitched the final camp from which they conquered the peak in 1913.

  They had arrived. This was it.

  Then flames erupted into the cold mountain air.

  There are two versions of what happened and the ensuing tent fire that nearly halted the expedition. Snyder described it this way: “The men in the tent had been using two stoves simultaneously, a hazardous practice at best. One had almost burned dry, and W. Taylor decided to refill it. Instead of taking the stove outside, he opened the
filler cap while the stove was sitting right beside the still-burning second stove. As the cap was unscrewed the pressurized fumes from the fuel tank filled the tent, and were immediately ignited by the second stove.”

  Wilcox, who was in the tent when the explosion occurred, drew a slightly different picture. “At 8:00 A.M. Hank, Walt, Steve, John, Dennis, and I were in the cook tent, when one of the cook stoves began to malfunction. When Walt inspected the gas tank release [relief] valve, it popped off, permitting fumes to escape, which were ignited by the second stove.”

  The Wilcox Expedition carried Optimus 111B stoves, popular among climbers of the day and known to be both durable and reliable. I owned one myself in the 1970s when I hiked and canoed around Alaska as a member of Boy Scout Troop 211. My parents tossed mine out sometime after I left home. During an interview with Frank Nosek, the former president of the Mountaineering Club of Alaska, I mentioned the fire and Wilcox’s description of a relief valve. “I think I’ve still got my 111B,” he said, “and I don’t think it has a relief valve either.” A few days later Nosek forwarded images of a well-used 111B. The blue metal box, five inches square, was open, revealing the brass fuel tank and steel heat shield. Tucked inside was the key that slid into the hole beneath the brass burner to open the fuel valve. There was no relief valve.