Denali's Howl: The Deadliest Climbing Disaster on America's Wildest Peak (26 page)
Read Denali's Howl: The Deadliest Climbing Disaster on America's Wildest Peak Online
Authors: Andy Hall
Howard Snyder
Paul Schlichter, Joe Wilcox, and Jerry Lewis leave Camp VII at 17,900 feet for the summit on July 15, 1967. Lewis carries wands for trail marking strapped to his pack.
Howard Snyder
Joe Wilcox on the summit of Denali on July 15, 1967, holding a pennant from his alma mater, Kansas State College of Pittsburg.
Howard Snyder
Jerry Lewis on the summit. During his radio conversation with rangers at Eielson Visitor Center he spoke with his neighbor from Colorado who happened to be visiting the park.
Howard Snyder
Paul Schlichter sets off a smoke flare on the summit of Denali while rangers and visitors at Eielson Visitor Center in the park below observed the smoke.
Jerry Lewis/Howard Snyder Collection
Howard Snyder on Denali’s summit. The team carried a CB radio and with it held one of the first direct radio conversations between the summit and the rangers in the park.
Gayle Nienhueser
The storm-blasted high camp as encountered by the MCA team on the morning of July 28. Rather than survivors they found a corpse gripping a tent pole, wrapped in the wind-shattered yellow tent. The gear bags in the foreground appeared to be propping up the tent.
Howard Snyder
Leaving Camp VII at noon on July 17, 1967. Paul Schlichter is closest to photographer Howard Snyder. Behind him from left to right, Anshel Schiff, Mark McLaughlin, Hank Janes, and Walt Taylor.
Denali National Park and Preserve Museum Collection. Dena 13611 Folder 108.
John Russell’s bamboo staff, flagged with the remains of the burned tent, stood alone in the snow a few hundred yards below Camp VII after the storm. A sleeping bag and shell containing wool socks and a pair of down booties was wrapped around the shaft. The pack that can be seen in the image belongs to the MCA rescue team.
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Blaine Smith’s sense of humor is revealed by his behavior in a cross-country ski race in which we both competed in 2011. Moments before the starting gun, he pushed me over. He has a more philosophical side. After we talked about the storm he survived, he said, “There is no reward without risk. I can’t imagine living life without it.”
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Information compiled from Joe Wilcox’s White Winds (Los Alamitos, CA: Hwong Publishing Company, 1981); Howard Snyder’s The Hall of the Mountain King (New York: Scribner, 1973); DENA13611 1967 Wilcox Expedition Folder, and an undated letter to Joe Wilcox from Mark McLaughlin.
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“Eskimo” is commonly used in Alaska to refer to all Inuit and Yupik people of the world. It is considered derogatory in many other places because it was given by non-Inuit people and was said to mean “eater of raw meat.” Linguists now believe that “Eskimo” is derived from an Ojibwa word meaning “to net snowshoes.”
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A Prusik is a friction knot used to attach a loop of cord around a climbing rope. The Prusik grips the rope under pressure but can slip when the pressure is relieved. Two Prusiks are used in tandem on one rope, allowing a climber to ascend by shifting weight from one Prusik to the other. While one Prusik holds the climber’s weight, the other is moved higher on the rope; then weight is transferred to that one, allowing the other to be loosened and moved up the rope.
