Denali National Park
The perpetual snow is deep atop Mount McKinley, called Denali ("the Great One") by native Alaskans, and even in midsummer the temperatures regularly plunge below 0°F. In terms of sheer rise from base to summit, it is the tallest mountain in the world, its awesome north face soaring some 18,000 feet above the wide tundra plain before it. The Alaska Range in which it stands contains other snowy summits that would dwarf the Colorado Rockies, but they seem no more than foothills beside Denali's majestic bulk.
Unlike mountains in the lower 48 states, those of the Alaska Range are clothed not in forests but only in ice and snow. Down their flanks flow vast, slow glaciers, gouging out deep, troughlike gorges and filling them with ice. Wet weather comes from the south here: dozens of feet of new snow are added yearly to the glaciers of the south face, and they grow deep and long from ice fields many miles across.
Though smaller, the north-face glaciers are better known because their snouts head into the accessible tundra, their meltwater feeding countless streams and rivers. Northward these waterways weave braided paths along wide gravel beds before they dive down narrow canyons through the "outer hills," smaller mountains to the north of the Alaska Range. Occasionally, these streams, unleashed by warm weather or by sudden thunderstorms, become roaring torrents. But when they are not frozen, they are usually icy, ankle-deep trickles.
The timberline here is about 2,700 feet (in the Colorado Rockies it ranges from 11,000 to 12,000 feet), and so most of the park is treeless. Where trees do grow, they are often stunted, their top growth sheared by winter winds. The landscape is open, exposed: the sense of space can be overwhelming.
Living things can be seen from afar. Along a distant ridge, a band of caribou moves gracefully and effortlessly. A movement in the low brush of a river bar reveals a grizzly sow and cubs. Dall sheep are easy to spot: tiny white dots against a brown hillside.
This is a raw wilderness, untamed and barely challenged. The ancient peoples who hunted here followed a pattern of life that was as firmly tied to the brief passage of summer as are the lives of the tundra's plants and animals. Only in the past century have outsiders come: some to dig for gold beneath the outer hills, some to experience the wilderness itself, and many to challenge the mighty mountain.
The first ascent
There are those who, when confronted with a mountain, must stand on top of it. So it is small wonder that Denali has attracted adventurers since the day in 1897 that newspapers proclaimed the discovery of "America's rival to Everest."
The approach to the mountain is easier than it used to be; ski-planes generally deliver climbers to the surface of a glacier at about 7,500 feet. But there is not, and never has been, anything easy about the climb. One must stand in awe of those early adventurers who attempted the first ascent.
Among them was Judge James Wickersham, who was appointed in 1900 to establish the rule of law on a gold-rush frontier. Covering his huge territory by riverboat, canoe, snowshoes, and dog team, he became as tough as any Alaskan of that era. In 1903 he set out, with four other men and two mules, on the first recorded assault on Denali's summit. They stopped at 8,000 feet but were hailed as heroes, having exceeded everyone's expectations.
Next came Dr. Frederick Cook, a famous polar explorer. After two well-publicized failures, he made a third trek in 1906. He and another man were gone 12 days and returned with photographs, including one that they said was the view from the summit of Mount McKinley. Many believed them, but some did not. In 1910 a group sent to test the claim found that the "summit" photo had actually been taken from a 5,300-foot ridge south of the mountain.
Meanwhile, in 1909 a group of Alaskans, alarmed that outsiders might be the first to climb "their" mountain, had raised money to back a grizzled quartet of grizzled local miners. The four men, known ever after as "the sourdoughs," added a romantic and improbable chapter to the history of mountaineering. After arriving by dogsled from Fairbanks, 150 miles away, they followed the surface of the Muldrow Glacier partway up. On April 3, 1910, all but one left the 11,000-foot level for the final ascent, carrying an American flag, a 14-foot wooden flagpole, a thermos of hot chocolate, and a bag of doughnuts. They arrived back on the same day, claiming to have planted Old Glory on top of Mount McKinley. But no one could see the flag from Fairbanks, and the sourdoughs' story was generally dismissed. (Even today, climbers with modern equipment and no flagpoles allow at least two weeks for the same final ascent.)
After two more attempts failed, another Alaskan expedition was organized, by Archdeacon Hudson Stuck, a leader of the Episcopal Church in Alaska. Like Judge Wickersham, Stuck shared the life of those he served, traveling throughout his territory by the arduous means of time and sleeping out along the trail in any temperature and in all weather, using whatever shelter was at hand.
To lead the expedition, he chose one Harry P. Karstens. Since leaving his Illinois home for the Klondike goldfields at age 17, Karstens had become the epitome of the early Alaskan sourdough: resourceful, self-reliant, tough, and adventurous. In later years, after his name had been given to Karsten's Ridge, the tortuous knife-edge route that flanks the upper Muldrow and Harper glaciers, he was to become the first superintendent of Mount McKinley National Park.
With two other men, Robert Tatum and Walter Harper, Stuck and Karstens succeeded in reaching South Peak, the mountain's true summit, on June 7, 1913. And to their surprise, atop North Peak, two miles away and only 850 feet lower, they saw the sourdoughs' flagpole, thus making their own expedition a double triumph for the people of Alaska.