Denali's Howl: The Deadliest Climbing Disaster on America's Wildest Peak (13 page)

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 would 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.

We see a party of 5 coming down the cocks comb really slow. I watch them thru my binocs and make funny comments #3 sits down, #1 talks, what the hell is going on? Until it occurs to me that there is trouble. As one we go up and meet the five man group who are staggering down.

Hoeman, Bill Babcock, Jeff Babcock, Gayle Nienhueser, John Ireton, and Chet Hackney gathered food and drink and met the exhausted climbers at the top of the fixed line about 900 feet above their camp.

“
They literally drank and drank,” Babcock told me. “They drank everything we had and ate everything we had. We belayed them down the icy pitch and then fed them again. We were elated to see the climbers but then we wondered what the heck happened to the other ones.”

W
hen Bill Babcock realized that the seven remaining men had been incommunicado high on the Harper Glacier for nearly a week and might be running short on food and fuel,
he urged Joe Wilcox to call an all-out rescue. “
To me, it was blatantly obvious four days earlier that anyone up there was going to be having serious problems,” Bill Babcock told me.

Grace Jansen Hoeman’s journal reads, “
Bill will go up in forced ascent if the decision is made.”

The 4:45
P
.
M
. entry on Sunday, July 23, in the Wonder Lake log notes, “
Wilcox reached MCA group at 12,100 OK. Asks that rescue not be called until observation made, but should be ready to go immediately. Asked about a larger plane. Merry again recommended to HQ that overflight by large craft be made.”

The Wonder Lake log was clear: do not launch a rescue until an observation flight is made. But as far as Joe Wilcox was concerned, there was no difference between calling for a rescue and calling for an overflight. “
Somehow, there was the idea that Merry hadn’t called an all-out rescue,” said Wilcox. “I kept repeating ‘I need an overflight.’ I didn’t see the distinction. You can’t have an overflight without an emergency situation.” He was asking for help.

At sea, when lives are at stake, the distress call is mayday, mayday, mayday. On a mountain it is not so simple; at least it wasn’t then.

Neither the Park Service nor the Alaska Rescue Group had the authority to order the Air Force to launch a plane. That decision lay solely with the commander at the RCC. Given that National Weather Service wind charts showed high-velocity winds had been constant at 18,000 feet since July 18, any flight would have been dangerous, if not impossible, and visibility virtually nil anyway. Only the uninformed would have thought an overflight possible.

“
I got the sense that Wilcox did not want to trigger a rescue unless he was absolutely sure it was necessary,” recalled Frank Nosek. “I don’t know what the thinking would be behind that. I’ve often thought to myself, Well, Wilcox viewed rescues like most of the climbers did in the early ’60s; it’s kind of a sign of weakness. You didn’t want it to happen unless there was absolutely, positively no other way but to call a rescue.”

Late that day, Gayle Nienhueser, one of the MCA climbers, overheard Joe Wilcox and Schiff arguing over whether to call a rescue. Schiff, Nienhueser recalled,
was worried about the cost, a familiar concern. Though keeping costs down had been a factor when planning the expedition, Wilcox says he wasn’t worried about the expense when it came to searching for the lost men. One way or another the matter was resolved between Schiff and Wilcox quickly.

“
There’s a full-scale rescue under way!” Schiff announced to Snyder and Schlichter at 10:30
P
.
M
. “Do you want your parents notified?”

The Wonder Lake log on July 23 makes no mention of a formal rescue call, only noting continued calls for an overflight: “
Merry again recommended to H.Q. that overflight by large craft be made—decision apparently has been to wait until Sheldon can make it.” The Alaska Rescue Group diary doesn’t note a change in status either, but after all, with the mountain socked in, rescuers in Anchorage and Talkeetna could do no more than stand by.

“
I remember we mobilized and were ready, but we didn’t feel like we were in a better position for a rescue than Babcock’s group was,” Nosek said. “Sheldon couldn’t go, and the RCC wouldn’t.”

How hard would it have been to do a flyover? Chuck Sassara flew in Alaska from 1951 to 2010, piloting more than 171 types of aircraft from a two-seater, 65-horsepower Luscombe to the four-engine, cargo-carrying Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation. Sassara says effective search aircraft must be able to fly low and slow enough to allow for a visual search while maintaining maneuverability. “
You have to be moving faster than your aircraft’s maneuvering speed in the mountains. It’s stall speed plus 50 percent because of downdrafts and other turbulence.” For the small, single-engine Super Cub and slightly larger Cessna 180, that’s 60 and 85 miles per hour respectively. The multiengine C-130 would have to maintain a speed of at least 200 miles per hour.

Because of their need for speed, large aircraft don’t like small spaces. “You simply can’t get it down in those cracks and crevices that have to be searched like you can a 180 or a Cub,” Sassara said. “You need a lot of room to turn. If you’re in the Mojave Desert: no problem. If you’re in Denali Pass trying to get through a notch, you’re going to be in a world of hurt.”

The plan that Superintendent Hall and the ARG had made, calling on the MCA Expedition to become a rescue team, was the only option available. They were acclimated, in position, and ready to move as soon as the weather allowed.

That night Bill Babcock, along with his brother Jeff, Nienhueser, Ireton, and Hackney, made preparations to move up as quickly as they could. Grace Hoeman had been sick and Babcock felt that she would hinder their progress and told her she would have to descend with the Wilcox team. She was not happy about it but agreed.

Joe Wilcox expressed no interest in climbing back up the mountain with the MCA team. Babcock saw his anguish. “
He just wanted to take off, and I wasn’t in a position to stop him. It seemed like he should go out with his group. Joe was obviously very distraught. I mean, I can’t even imagine what was going through his head.”

Wilcox Expedition group one, accompanied by Dr. Hoeman, continued their descent at noon on Monday, July 24. Heavy snow and whiteout prevailed at the MCA camp on Karstens Ridge through the day. Babcock’s journal notes that at 9:00
P
.
M
., the high winds returned: “
Winds began to pick up and by midnight were 50–60 mph and the tents all but blew away. The high winds lasted until early morning.”

At 4:30
A.M.
on July 25, Chet Hackney woke the camp. The skies had cleared and they readied to leave, packing warm clothes, sleeping bags, food, and their shovels and snow saws. The tents that had proven vulnerable to the wind and sapped their energy during the night were left behind. From here on they’d rely on snow caves for shelter.

Though there is no mention of it in Babcock’s journal, the Wonder Lake log reads, “
MCA report good flying weather.”

That day, Don Sheldon flew for the first time since July 18. Though a standing cloud cap obscured the mountain above 15,000 feet and rose well above the summit, to 25,000 feet, he proved the versatility of his small plane by slipping in and
dropping a radio and food 500 feet below Wilcox’s 15,000-foot camp.

Higher on the mountain, at 17,200 feet on the West Buttress, Louis Reichardt reported, “
We awoke at 3:30
A.M.
, the familiar thin cloud had returned to the mountain, a harbinger of storm. Every one of us had seen that cloud before and knew what it implied.” After playing cat and mouse in the clouds, the sun and the peak disappeared from view, and heavy snow resumed.

The weeklong storm that hit those men on the mountain was a once-in-a-lifetime event, maybe once in a century. John Papineau, who’s been a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for more than a decade, sits at his desk in the fall of 2011, studying a modern-day version of the 1967 storm on a computer screen. Even today, he says, if a storm of this magnitude hit, there’d be little we could do to save anyone unfortunate enough to be clinging to the side of Denali when it rolled in.

Under the fluorescent lights at his desk in the Anchorage Forecast Office, Papineau sits down in front of two side-by-side computer screens.

“
Would you like to see the storm?” he asks, then without waiting for an answer clicks the mouse and makes a few keystrokes: a map of Alaska appears on the screens, overlain with concentric circles representing the weather systems that were moving across the skies of interior Alaska on July 18, 1967.

Since the 1930s, NOAA’s National Weather Service has used weather balloons to collect information on atmospheric conditions, including temperature, moisture, pressure, and wind speed and direction. In Alaska, balloons are launched daily from thirteen locations, and data collected during their flights is used to create weather forecasts for the region. Three of those locations—McGrath, Fairbanks, and Anchorage—triangulate almost perfectly around Denali. That data, from July 18 to July 25, 1967, is what Papineau has used to produce the model on his screen.

“This is where it began, in the Arctic,” he says, pointing to the top of the Alaska map. “In the Beaufort Sea, we had an area of low pressure, and in that airflow the winds are going to be counterclockwise.”

He grabs a white pad of paper and makes an inverted
V
in the center saying, “Denali is here.” Then he draws a spiral swirling counterclockwise just north of the mountain. As the spiral grows, the lower part of the rings, representing wind direction, begins overlapping the mountain in a west-to-east direction.

“That’s the low to the north,” he says.

Beneath and slightly to the left of Denali he draws another spiral, this one swirling clockwise. As he widens it, the upper lines of the spiral overlap the mountain as well, also indicating west-to-east airflow.

“That’s the high in the south.”

Then he taps the overlapping lines.

“So anytime you get a low and a high and they get close together, you get strong winds,” he says.

On the computer screen the weather systems were bigger and less distinct, but as Papineau advances the maps showing July 19, 20, 21, and 22, more and more lines appear, compressing tightly together over Denali. Those lines, he explains, represent unusually strong westerly winds.

The data Papineau is using tells a story of just how horrific those winds were, whipping at 60 to 70 miles per hour, nearly nonstop, from July 19 to July 25. Papineau shakes his head and exhales in a long, slow hiss, his eyes never leaving the screen.

“Those guys on the mountain just had the unfortunate timing—the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Just a few weeks later, the late Ted Fathauer ran a similar model at the Weather Bureau office in Fairbanks and also marveled at the stack of lines indicating the winds over Denali during the weeklong July storm.

“
They were where the wind is just like a river,” he said, confirming Papineau’s analysis. “It goes slightly upstream, but when it begins to flow with gravity, then it accelerates. I can see eighty miles an hour in Denali Pass, but the real change began on the nineteenth of July. They must have had gusts of eighty or ninety miles an hour.”

Fathauer, advancing through the weather maps a day at a time, shakes his head.

“It’s not the first time we’ve ever seen them act like this, but it’s certainly the worst. Then, on the twentieth, there, it was even faster I’m sure. In the south pass they were getting west winds gusting to a hundred miles an hour. More of the same on the twenty-first; the twenty-second must have been a real scene. The twenty-third was only a little less terrible. I’d say this is the worst storm to hit the mountain, the worst when people were on it.”

Then he explained a factor known as gap flow, where air movement through tight passes is accelerated like water through a fire hose, and that thereby the wind could have been three times as fierce as 100 miles per hour. It would have surpassed the highest wind gusts ever recorded on land by some 70 miles per hour, but a back- of-the-envelope calculation of gap-flow acceleration suggests maximum wind-gust velocities as high as 300 miles per hour could have raked the ridges and passes of the upper mountain on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday—July 20, 21, and 22 of 1967.

Though they were exhausted after a night spent wrestling with their tents in the high winds at the 12,100-foot camp, the MCA Expedition turned rescue party made swift work of the steep and treacherous Karstens Ridge, covering 2,400 feet in nine hours—a feat that had taken the Wilcox crew a full week to accomplish.

And the work wasn’t over when they reached the top, as Babcock’s journal notes: “
Spent several hours digging cave and building igloo. VERY TIRED.”