Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25044
MT MCKINLEY, ALASKA, USA 20,320 FEET Also known as Denali, "the high one" in Athabaskan, this is North America's highest peak. Since 1932, 89 people have died climbing it. The park service reports that it averages 12 rescues per season (mid-April to mid-J uly). Climbers should register 60 days in advance. About 1,100 peo ple attempt Mt McKinley each year and about half make the three-week trip to the summit. At peak times up to 400 people can be on the moun tain at any given time. A camp at 14,000 feet includes a physician. OPTIMUM SEASON: MID-APRIL TO MID-JULY TEMPERATURE: 40°F TO ... 40°F PERMIT COST: $150 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH They req uire huge sums of money for travel, equip . ment, and park fees, and most of them demand years f training in a range of disciplines (skiing, rock climb ing, crevasse rescue) to undertake. Child is quick to dissuade newcomers to the sport from charg ing off to ______ .the Himalayas. The Seven Summits, and particularly Everest, are serious business. "I 'd love to drive in the Indy 500," he reasons, "But if I ta lked myself into one of those cars, I'd get myself killed." But both Child and Koch acknowledge that experience is only half the battle. The fortunes of even the best alpin ists are often left to chance: "Sometimes it's human error, " Koch says, "But sometimes the mountain just says 'no.'" For American altitude jun kies, Alaska's Mt McKinley, also known as Denal i-at the apex of a learning curve �-----·that begins with Mt Rai nier in Washington and esca lates to the Grand Tetons-is the closest and most convenient giant. The North Face's Topher Gaylord prices a guided tour up Mt McKinley, equipment included, at around $6,000-a bargain compared to the $65,000 which Sherpa-guided tours extract from Everest comers. It is the summit on a shoestring. As a result, the park has been overrun with climbers in recent years. So many, in fact, that the park service recently in stituted a slow-dow.n tactic, a 60-day preregistration period for permits to climb McKinley. Bush pilot Paul Roderick has been flying expeditions from tiny Ta lkeetna, Alaska, to the climbers' base camp on the west buttress since 1990. In the high sea son from Apri l to mid-July, the negligible population of Talkeetna swells with "climbers in their plastic boots waiting to fly, " and Roderick is in the air four times a day. Annie Duquette's convivial and cozy base camp is thick with return ing climbers and those waiting for the weather to clear so they can begin the ascent. Regardless of how you slice it, the 20,320-foot ice monster Denali is a peri lous hike. And not everybody makes it back to ' Duquette's with head held high. "Most people are weeded out before 14,000 feet," Roderick says, "Most folks get to camp and start ski ing and back out." When Stephen Koch ventured to McKin ley the fi rst time, he had to nix snowboarding it for fear that his equipnient was not up to snuff. "I t was really cold and I was trying soft boots and soft bindings. I lost the circulation in my feet when I clamped the bindings down, so I abandoned snowboarding because I didn't want to risk frostbite." Three years would pass before Koch could return . This time he suc ceeded, and, just for good measure, he climbed the mountain twice. After a relatively easy ascent up one face, he set out to solo the in fa mous 5,000-foot Messner Couloir on the other side. A Japanese team that had tried to snowboard it the previous year was caught in an avalanche. One unfortunate soul was swept up in the tumult and deposited a few thousand feet below, paralyzed. Stephen Koch perse vered , and he became the fi rst person to hold a single edge on Messner: six hours up, 12 mi nutes down. But the true gi ant of the Americas, and the first stop for many trail-including Koch-is Argenti na's on the Seven Summits Aconcagua. At 22,834 feet, it's the highest peak in the Western