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

by Andy Hall

  “He said I was not to leave her out of my sight for one minute when she was in Alaska. So I just packed up and followed her around in just that exact way.”

  Superintendent Hall was away for nearly three weeks showing the congresswoman and her entourage the national parks at Katmai, Glacier Bay, and Sitka, as well as sites that were under consideration for new parks. He had been concerned about the Wilcox Expedition since Washburn sent his fiery letter, and soon after he returned home he asked Chief Ranger Art Hayes for an update.

  “The ranger said to me, ‘Well, we’ve got good news. The first party consisting of the two leaders and a few others went to the top and came down. The second party, meaning the rest of the people, all relatively inexperienced, were now up and they radioed they were on the top and on their way down . . . Unfortunately that was the last we heard from them.’”

  The Wonder Lake log describes Wilcox’s midday radio call on Thursday, one that would set in motion a chain of events that would involve dozens of people desperate, but impotent, to help.

  At about noon, Wilcox exp. called from 15,000' camp expressing concern for 7 men at 17,900' camp who were out of contact for 2 days and requested ARG overflight if no contact made by 8 P.M. Merry to Eielson to talk with them at 4 P.M. contact and to get further info.

  Mount McKinley National Park headquarters, however, didn’t wait for another missed radio check. At 2:15 P.M. Chief Ranger Hayes called Gary Hansen, the chairman of the Alaska Rescue Group, the civilian organization that provided mountaineering rescue support for the National Park Service and the Air Force.

  By 4:30 P.M., Hansen had received his briefing.

  By 5:00 P.M., Hansen was on the phone with the Rescue Coordination Center at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage. He had worked with the RCC during the Winter Ascent operation a few months earlier and knew they could be slow to launch rescue flights. No rescue had been called, but the sooner the RCC was made aware of a potential rescue situation, the better.

  Hansen says, “The same spirit of preparation for such a contingency that Art Hayes had exhibited in contacting me, prompted me to contact Capt. Flanik at the RCC, understanding that the RCC had the greatest capacity to make high-altitude overflights, and to make drops, of any party that could be reasonably called upon to participate in a search of the upper mountain.”

  Meanwhile, desperate to do something, anything, to assist, Wayne Merry had driven from Wonder Lake to Eielson so he could speak directly with Joe Wilcox. Wonder Lake was not in line of sight with the Harper Glacier and thus out of direct radio contact. Once he got there, he told Wilcox by radio that “the ARG had been alerted.” Merry asked “if he understood that they would probably be billed for the flight, as there was no certainty that an emergency existed.” Wilcox replied with a “Roger.” Merry asked if he wanted to have Don Sheldon chartered if the Alaska Rescue Group could not fly, and again Wilcox replied simply “Roger.” He was then told that a “go-ahead” on the flight would be transmitted to ARG as requested at 8:00 P.M. if the upper camp had not been heard from.

  At 5:30 P.M., Chief Ranger Art Hayes and ARG’s Gary Hansen were on the phone outlining the situation on the mountain and already discussing an airdrop if one was deemed necessary. “If a flight is required upper party (17,900) requires: White gas, 5 gals. Citizen’s band radio, channel 10. Lower party (15,000) requires: Pen light batteries, alkaline, size AA.”

  When the climbers failed to make the scheduled radio check at 8:00 P.M., Eielson called headquarters:

  Word passed to H.Q. (Hayes) at 8:30 P.M. that flight was requested for soonest possible time—airdrop of fuel and radio to high camp and batteries to 15,000 camp.

  At 9:15 P.M., Art Hayes called Gary Hansen again to tell him that ranger Wayne Merry had spoken with Wilcox, “who requested an air drop to both parties (8:00 P.M.) of items above as soon as weather permits. Wilcox party will reimburse ARG costs.” Hayes requested that “GH (Gary Hansen) advise him when the drop is to be made, and after, how many people can be seen at each elevation.”

  At 9:30 P.M., Hansen called ARG member and pilot Paul Crews with no luck. Five minutes later he was talking with Lowell Thomas Jr., a well-known glacier pilot, seeking advice on what type of aircraft would be best suited to make the high-altitude airdrop. Thomas recommended contacting Ward Gay, who flew a turboprop Beaver.

  At 9:40 P.M., Gary Hansen called Sea Airmotive, Gay’s flight service: No answer. Two minutes after that, he rang Gay’s residence: Again, no luck.

  At 9:50 P.M., Hansen was ringing a radio-supply store seeking Citizens Band radios for the drop. When he learned none were available, he asked if anyone could check out the three the Alaska Rescue Group’s sets that night. He was told to call back in the morning.

  All these would-be rescuers knew how dangerous the situation was. They had the first of many restless nights. Unable to act, immobilized by a storm that continued to rage, waiting for it to break. The next morning, Chairman Hansen went straight back to work.

  At 8:15 A.M. on Friday, July 21, Hansen and Hayes were on the phone, going over weather conditions on the mountain. “Report from the mountain: Broken clouds, 50–60 mph winds @16,000 ft. (Wilcox) Estimated winds @17,900 ft. 80 mph. Hayes standing by for news of attempt @ overflight by Sheldon.” For context, winds at 74 miles per hour are considered hurricane force.

  While pilot Don Sheldon prepared to go up in his stripped-down bare aluminum Cessna 180, Hansen continued his search for an aircraft that could withstand the high winds and make the airdrop if Sheldon could not.

  At 8:40 A.M., he was on the phone with ARG pilot Crews, and the two men identified three aircraft that might be suitable: a Cessna 310 operated by Alaska Aeronautical, a Pilatus Porter operated by Wien Air Alaska, and Ward Gay’s Turbo Beaver. Hansen had reached Gay ten minutes prior to calling Crews—notes taken on that call say only that Gay will call back.

  By 8:50 A.M., Hansen was on the line with Sheldon, who reported poor weather. Indeed, Wilcox had called Eielson an hour earlier and reported winds at his elevation were steady at 50 miles per hour with gusts to 65.

  Snyder estimated the winds he and Wilcox were experiencing on Friday to be in excess of 70 miles per hour. “The storm, which had been battering the party at 15,000' for two days reached the peak of its fury on 21 July. A man could not stand outside the tents, and the wind made inhaling very difficult, giving the sensation of suffocation.”

  On the West Buttress, the Western States Expedition awoke at 4:30 A.M. to a very different picture. “The day was cold and clear, not too windy with only a few clouds high above,” Louis Reichardt’s July 21 journal entry reads. Stove problems delayed breakfast and kept them in camp until 7:30. By then the weather had started to change: “Those few high clouds turned into a cloud cap and the wind began to whisper.” Hoping the clouds would dissipate, they set out across the basin that separated their camp from Denali Pass.

  “Unfortunately, the weather did not break,” Reichardt wrote. “Instead, as we labored across the basin, the mists sank lower and lower. By the time we had reached the other side and begun our angling ascent to the pass, we were in a whiteout.”

  The men ultimately turned back to the shelter of the West Buttress camp.

  At 11,500 feet, on Karstens Ridge, Babcock’s MCA Expedition was up at 1:30 A.M. on Friday, July 21, under cold but clear and windless conditions. So much snow had powdered the ridge that they deemed it too dangerous to ascend after climbing just 100 feet.

  Working in two-hour shifts they spent the next eight hours clearing the ridge with snow shovels, reaching 12,100 feet around noon, just ahead of the rising wind.

  “Storm appears to be roaring off the Harper glacier. Hit us about 12:30,” Babcock’s journal reads.

  By 1:30 P.M., they all were back in camp. “We build huge snow walls all around our tents plus an igloo in case of emergency. It looks real bad and may be with us for
several days.” The storm had battered the mountain for days, but these experienced climbers suspected that they hadn’t seen the worst of it.

  The team hunkered down in their fortified camp while the storm raged around them. “When visibility improved, winds coming off Browne Tower and Harper Glacier were frightening and appeared to have velocities in excess of 100 miles an hour. Early this morning, a dark mass of clouds came in from the north. The prevailing winds, however, were from the southwest.”

  The high- and low-pressure systems continued to vie for dominance over Denali, and the chaotic, incongruent conditions experienced by those on the mountain offer only a hint of what was happening in the violent, turbulent air swirling around the peak. It’s no wonder that neither Don Sheldon nor any of the pilots Hansen contacted were willing to fly.

  Though they had not been contacted yet, Babcock and his team, most of whom were members of the Alaska Rescue Group, knew the Wilcox team was in trouble.

  “I knew there was a problem up high when that storm hit, just having experienced big storms elsewhere,” Babcock said. “Winds were easily a hundred miles an hour plus.”

  The Mountaineering Club of Alaska team carried enough food to wait out the long storms, and with the camp reinforced, they settled in. Bill Babcock said the vantage point high on Karstens Ridge offered a spectacular and sometimes frightening view of the storm’s power.

  At one point when the snow and fog cleared, an extraordinary sight was revealed high over the Harper Icefall, a few thousand feet above camp.

  “I didn’t know what it was at first, but with binoculars I could see the crust—it was just being picked right up and thrown down,” he said. “It was a half mile, three-quarters of a mile away. They were fifteen-to-twenty-foot slabs of ice being picked up and thrown around like kites. When I realized what it was, I said to myself, My God, those are slabs of ice just being picked up and carried away.”

  At 15,000 feet, the snow continued to pile up, threatening to bury the tent Wilcox shared with Schiff. They took turns getting up and clearing it away to keep the tent from collapsing. Between snow-removal duties, Schiff queried Wilcox about the summit and summit ridge and asked if the upper team could have fallen. Wilcox said it was possible but not likely.

  The conversation must have sparked a revelation in Schiff. “You know,” he said to Wilcox, “I think to not try the summit with the second team was the most important decision I have ever made in my life.”

  Strong winds continued through the night of Friday, July 21. The Colorado team was jarred from their fitful sleep by voices outside their tent calling for help. They opened the tent door and Schiff and Wilcox squeezed in. Their tent had collapsed under the weight of the relentless snow. Now five men were crowded head to foot inside the four-man tent.

  Soon, Jerry Lewis quit eating altogether, the others munched on candy, crackers, and anything else that didn’t require cooking. With no room to operate the stove, they relied on body heat to melt snow-filled water bottles for drinking water.

  Conversation was impossible inside the bucking shelter. The wind outside sounded like a jet engine, with huge gusts announcing their approach with thunderous roars. Schlichter said the words of the Animals’ recent hit song “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” was stuck in his head. He said he couldn’t keep his eyes off of the tent seams that strained under the onslaught of the wind. “I remember thinking, It’s only a matter of time before those things split apart,” he said. “I thought, If it happens, I’m going to dig down through the floor of the tent and dig my own little foxhole and see what happens.”

  The sky cleared in the morning on Saturday, July 22. It had been a week since Joe Wilcox stood on the summit. Despite the clear sky, the wind was unrelenting, stirring up a ground blizzard that obscured visibility even though the fog was gone. The blizzard ended only when the wind carried away the last of the loose snow around noon. Late in the day it began to ease, and Wilcox started talking about making another attempt to reach the high camp. Schlichter and Snyder were incredulous. Lewis was deteriorating quickly, Schiff and Wilcox were weak, and to make matters worse, Wilcox was having difficulty moving his hands. The two Colorado men hadn’t been affected by the altitude and might have been able to make it, but they were unwilling to leave behind three sick men who couldn’t care for themselves. Just getting the party down Karstens Ridge looked as if it was going to be dangerous, and while the wind in camp had diminished, they had no idea what conditions were like up high.

  Later that evening, when the rangers at Eielson asked if anyone was willing to go up, they shook their heads no. Wilcox, operating the radio, said, “Not more than one of us would feel like going up,” implying that he was willing and able to go but the others weren’t.

  They spoke with Eielson again later that night and an odd standoff occurred. Snyder asked Wilcox to tell Eielson that they had three sick men and couldn’t go up again. Wilcox refused, saying it wasn’t true.

  Howard Snyder, believing Wilcox was unwilling to admit he was ill, took the radio and tried to tell Eielson himself. The connection was poor and after five attempts finally got a “roger” from Eielson after saying, “We have three people pretty sick up here. This is why we could not go up. We have to get these people down.”

  The Wonder Lake log notes the condition of the men as reported by Snyder and that they would descend in the morning: “They understand that they were the closest team to upper camp but felt they could not stay or go up.”

  Had they gone, they likely would have been forced back, or been pinned down by winds that were not apparent from anywhere other than near the top of the mountain. Earlier that day, the wind dropped abruptly at 17,200 feet on the West Buttress, prompting the Western States Expedition to take advantage of what they thought was a break in the weather to try for the summit. Even though they could see Denali Pass and the summit, they had no idea how strong the wind there was until it was too late.

  “It was such a surprise,” expedition member Louis Reichardt told me in 2013. “Suddenly, when we got in line of sight, it was more than you could deal with.”

  His journal describes what happened as they approached Denali Pass:

  A few hundred yards from the pass, we walked into a steady breeze blowing up from the Peter’s Glacier Basin. We continued onwards and soon it was accelerating us up the slopes. This was an aid, not a problem, though, and we moved at an accelerating pace towards the pass. Soon we were practically running uphill and the moment we crossed the lip, the wind literally picked us up and hurled us on through. For a few moments my pack became a sail and I was blowing above the ground with my feet no longer touching. We were moving rapidly through the pass towards some rocks. Behind them, the terrain dropped off for an uncertain distance and, for an instant, I thought we were all going over a cliff. I could not remember any cliffs on our photos or maps, but then even 20 feet would be quite a bounce. Fortunately, I reached a low boulder first and stopped by lying down in the snow and bracing against it with my feet . . . The wind was steady and had a terrific velocity, magnitudes greater than anything I had seen before. Our estimates ranged from 100 to 150 m.p.h. . . . chunks of snow, sometimes entire snow hummocks, were being blown through with some large enough to be dangerous . . . There was no visible limit to the wind on this side of the pass and it would have been dangerous to be blown further into its vortex.

  They had to get out of the wind, and the only escape was back through the pass, so lying on their bellies, using ice axes and their crampons for traction, they crawled several hundred yards to escape the relentless blast.

  By refusing to go high again Snyder and Schlichter had dodged another bullet. That Saturday evening they dug out the buried tent and moved in for their final night at 15,000 feet. Joe Wilcox lay awake in the tent he shared with Schiff and Lewis, considering whether to stay behind and try to reach the upper camp alone. “Climbing alone unroped on the Harper wo
uld be a possibility, since no one had fallen completely into a crevasse since the Lower Icefall of the Muldrow, and I already had a trail to follow. I doubted that the others would force me to go down if I insisted on staying high alone.” In the other tent, Schlichter lay awake massaging his feet to ward off frostbite. Snyder said he drifted off quickly and enjoyed a deep sleep.

  Wilcox woke in the morning to find that his hands were numb. They didn’t appear to be discolored or frostbitten, yet he had trouble moving them and though he packed his own gear, he needed help with his crampons. Schiff complained of dizziness when he emerged from the tent in the morning, and Lewis had trouble walking.

  Still, the men realized they would only get weaker, and it was time to get to a lower elevation. They radioed in to Eielson with their plans, and then set out for the steep traverse across Parker Pass between the Harper Glacier and the base of Browne Tower, from which they would descend to Karstens Ridge. Lewis collapsed three times in the 150 yards between camp and the top of the traverse. “When Lewis would fall, Wilcox and Schiff would immediately sit down and slump over on the snow,” Snyder wrote.

  The descent was grueling, tedious work. The men encountered ice fields so dense their crampons wouldn’t catch, spanned by soft, crumbling snow paths. Finally, on Karstens Ridge and approaching the steepest part of the descent, the Coxcomb, they spotted the tents of the Mountaineering Club of Alaska Expedition at 12,100 feet.

  With refuge in sight, Jerry Lewis seemed to give up. “You’ll just have to leave me behind,” he said. But with gentle prodding from Snyder he stood up and continued down the steep slope.

  When the MCA Expedition spotted the five men high on the ridge around noon, they weren’t quite sure what to make of them. Dr. Grace Jansen Hoeman’s journal describes the initial reaction.