Two climbers are still awaiting rescue near the peak of Denali, North America’s tallest mountain, over two days after they sent an SOS message indicating they were hypothermic and unable to descend.
A third climber in the group was rescued Tuesday night after they were able to descend around 900 metres to reach a high mountain camp. They were found severely frostbitten and hypothermic, according to a press release from Denali National Park and Preserve.
Park spokesperson Paul Ollig told Global News that the two remaining climbers are still stranded on Denali as of Thursday afternoon. The men, aged 36 and 47, were able to dig a snow cave and have been sheltering there since Tuesday evening but high winds and dense clouds are preventing ground and air crews from reaching them.
The climbers have an inReach satellite phone with them, but the battery is dangerously low, Ollig said. The last time rescue authorities had contact with the stranded men was 10:17 p.m. Wednesday night, local time.
“Rangers made brief contact with the two men through their inReach device,” Ollig said. “They were able to express that they only have 1% power left on their device. It was a very, very quick contact.”
The mountain rescue mission began on Tuesday morning at 1 a.m. when rangers received an SOS message from a group of three Malaysian climbers stuck at the summit of Denali, 6,190 metres above sea level.
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The group had made an extended push for the summit of Denali that left them “exhausted and hypothermic,” Ollig said. The Denali National Park and Preserve warns visitors that climbing the peak “is a very serious undertaking” and “is almost always a multi-week endeavor, which is very different than an overnight or even multi-day climb.”
Rangers were able to maintain communication with the climbing group until around 3:30 a.m. when they texted that they planned to descend to an area of the Denali summit called the “Football Field,” a flat area at an elevation of 5975 metres.
After that, the group’s communications went dark and the location of the satellite phone did not move, the park press release states.
Denali’s peak was shrouded in clouds Tuesday morning, which prevented the park’s high-altitude helicopter from reaching the summit. Park officials requested help from the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center, and at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the Alaska Air National Guard deployed a search-and-rescue plane to assist.
A crew of pararescuers with the Alaska Air National Guard were able to spot the location of the two of the three climbers from their plane. The pair had managed to descend a short distance and were found at an elevation between 6095 and 5790 metres.
Meanwhile, the third climber, a 48-year-old man, was found alone with severe frostbite and hypothermia by a climbing guide that had been taking a party up the mountain. The party found the injured climber at 5,670 metres and helped him descend to a high camp at 5,240 metres.
A Denali ground team stationed at a camp 4,328 metres above sea level hiked up to meet them and took over care of the climber. At 10:15 p.m., the Denali high-altitude helicopter was able to fly up to the high camp at 5,240 metres and picked up the injured climber. He was then transferred to a LifeMed helicopter and flown to a hospital.
As for the two climbers that remain stranded, two more attempts to reach them by air were made Tuesday afternoon and evening. Each time they were thwarted by weather conditions.
An expedition guide who was on the upper mountain that day “diverted significant time to assist and provide care” to the stranded climbers, but they were forced to leave the two men behind when dense cloud cover moved in, the park press release states.
Spokeperson Ollig told Global News that the guide helped the two men “dig a crude snow cave and then left them with as much equipment as they could leave behind, like down layers, etc.”
It appears the two men are still sheltering in the snow cave at an elevation of 5,975 metres, two days later. Their latest messages came in Wednesday night, confirming their location and again requesting help.
The dense clouds and high winds on the upper mountain have prevented all air and ground rescue crews from travelling any higher than 5,180 metres, Ollig said.
A ground crew of Denali rangers and mountaineering volunteers remains at the high camp “on standby to move higher on the mountain once winds abate,” according to an updated press release. The park’s high-altitude helicopter is also on standby.
Only a small fraction of climbers who attempt to summit Denali actually reach its peak.
“Memorial Day weekend is the start of the busiest two weeks of the Denali mountaineering season. As of Wednesday morning, there are 506 climbers attempting climbs on Denali. So far this season, an additional 117 climbers have come and gone, 17 of whom reached the mountain’s summit, equating to a 15% summit rate,” officials write.
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