JUNEAU, Alaska — Two climbers awaited rescue near the summit of North America’s tallest mountain Wednesday, a day after they and a third member of their team requested assistance after summiting Denali during the peak of the climbing season, according to officials at Denali National Park and Preserve.
Their condition was not immediately known. The third climber was rescued late Tuesday. According to park spokesperson Paul Ollig in an email to The Associated Press, all three have expertise in climbing high-elevation foreign peaks, and two had previously climbed Denali.
2 Climbers Suffering From Hypothermia Await Rescue Off Denali, North America’s Tallest Mountain
At 1 a.m. Tuesday, park authorities received an SOS message from the three climbers, suggesting that they were hypothermic and unable to descend after reaching the 20,310-foot (6,190-meter) peak.
According to a park service statement, they communicated until around 3:30 a.m., when they texted intentions to descend to a flat region known as the “Football Field” at around 19,600 feet (5,974 meters).
Rangers did not hear from the climbers after that, and the location of their satellite communication device remained the same. The park’s high-altitude helicopter could not fly almost 50 miles (80 kilometers) from Talkeetna to Denali Tuesday morning due to cloud cover, so the park requested assistance from the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center. The Alaska Air National Guard dispatched an HC-130J aircraft from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage to search for the climbers.
Before noon Tuesday, two climbers were up the mountain between 19,000 and 20,000 feet (5,791 and 6,096 meters). A climbing guide spotted the third climber at around 18,600 feet (5,669 meters).
Conditions eased enough Tuesday evening for the high-altitude chopper to make another try, landing at a climbers’ tent at 14,200 feet (4,328 meters).
2 Climbers Suffering From Hypothermia Await Rescue Off Denali, North America’s Tallest Mountain
National Park Service mountaineering patrol rangers treated two climbers from another expedition for frostbite. The helicopter team transported the climbers to Talkeetna.
On Tuesday night, a third attempt was made to contact the three climbers who had issued the distress message. According to the park, one of them had dropped to a camp at an elevation of 17,200 feet (5,243 meters) and was suffering from severe frostbite and hypothermia. The climber, who received assistance from a guided party until a park service crew came, was airlifted from the mountain and eventually transported from Talkeetna.
According to the park service, an experienced expedition guide on the top mountain helped the other two climbers at the “Football Field,” but was obliged to descend to the 17,200-foot (5,243-meter) high camp for safety reasons when clouds returned.
Rescuers could not reach the two climbers Wednesday due to cloud cover and strong winds. Park service officers waited for conditions to improve before making any further attempts.
According to Ollig, the park spokesperson, it is unknown how much survival equipment the two climbers have, but “it is likely minimal.”
2 Climbers Suffering From Hypothermia Await Rescue Off Denali, North America’s Tallest Mountain
“Typically, on a summit day teams will often go up lighter, with more limited survival gear, so they can move faster,” he explained.
While this is “certainly a dramatic rescue operation, it is not necessarily out of the ordinary.”
Currently, 506 climbers aim to summit Denali, and the park service says Memorial Day weekend marks the beginning of the busiest two weeks of the climbing season.
Another 117 climbers have finished their attempts to ascend the summit. Of those, 17 made it to the peak.
Denali National Park and Preserve is approximately 240 miles (386 kilometers) north of Anchorage.
SOURCE – (AP)
