Waterman - In the shadow of Denali: life and death on Alaskas Mt. Mckinley

Jonathan Waterman has forged an international reputation as an alpinist, adventurer, writer, and photographer. He has written or compiled several other books, including Kayaking the Vermillion Sea, A Most Hostile Mountain, The Quotable Climber, and Surviving Denali.

Praise for In the Shadow of Denali

A mountaineering classic, not only because it takes as its subject the nations highest mountain but also because Waterman writes with unusual vision and spirit... Striking not a single false note... this is a strong, mature work by a gifted writer. Booklist

A fine writer with a profound appreciation of what towering mountains are... this is a book about the high mountains written by a real mountain man.James Michener

A magnificent book, beautifully written, a superb delineation, in the broadest sense, of one persons relationship to landscape.Ann Zwinger, In the Blast Zone

Tales from the mean side of Denali, from a freelancer with a reputation for writing fine climbing stories... Arresting... A pleasure to read. Kirkus Reviews

Masterful storytelling... There is climbing in this book, but remarkably it is not a book about climbing, any more than A River Runs Through It was a book about fishing. Waterman the writer resembles that other Alaskan adventurer, Jack London. But in his storytelling, in the way he renders non-fiction close to fiction with its alien and thoughtful beauty, he descends more directly from Norman Maclean... He is our Ishmael, the eloquent witness to a profound journey. Boulder Camera

Bewitching. It was an honor to read this eyes-open chronicle of being beaten to a psychological pulp and then reborn. American Alpine Journal

Poetic and powerfula testimony to both the man and the mountain. Dennis Eberl, Alpinist and Denali climber

Taut understated prose captures the commitment of dedicated climbers. Publishers Weekly

Personal, intense, gripping... a compelling book. He is a serious writer, daring to take up the challenge of avoiding hackneyed prose in telling about fear, cold, wind and such wondrous beauty as the aurora shining on the mountain.Bill Hunt, Alaska

Copyright 1994, 1998, 2010 by Jonathan Waterman

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to Globe Pequot Press, Attn: Rights and Permissions Department, P.O. Box 480, Guilford, CT 06437.

Lyons Press is an imprint of Globe Pequot Press.

Text design by Libby Kingsbury

Photos by the author unless noted otherwise

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Waterman, Jonathan.

In the shadow of Denali : life and death on Alaskas Mt. Mckinley / Jonathan Waterman.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-59921-794-9

1. MountaineeringAlaskaMcKinley, MountHistory. 2. Mountaineering accidentsAlaskaMcKinley, MountHistory. 3. McKinley, Mount (Alaska)History. I. Title.

GV199.42.A42M3276 2010

796.52209798'3dc22

2009032237

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Chequerd shadow.

Shakespeare,
Titus Andronicus

To that high Capitol, where kingly Death Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay, He came.

Percy Bysshe Shelley,
Arethusa

I remain indebted to many friends who have helped me breathe life into my work here and on other pages. Brad Washburns inspiration and kindness over the years have helped to unveil the world that lurks behind a 20,320-foot mountain. My sincere thanks also go to: John Thackray, Lou Dawson, Ed Webster, Dave Hale, Steve Roper, Michael Kennedy, Michael Benge, Alison Osius, John Harlin, Dave Gretchell, Jim Chase, Jed Williamson, James Michener, George Bracksiek, Will Glad, Nancy Prichard, Ralph Bovard, Charlie Houston, Carolyn Hines, Paul Konrad, Steve Cassimiro, Greg Cliburn, Andrew Tillon, Mark Bryant, Al Steck, Greg Child, Kim Heacox, Jeff Long, Rick Ridgeway, John Wilcox, Scott Gill, Susan Colomb, Mitch Horowitz, Kerre Martineau, Bryan Oettel, and David Sobel. Like my accomplices on Denali, these people put forth incentive and, sometimes, the grubstake for my stories. Their examples as writers or editors or their specific advice incited me to slog through tedious rewrites, pulled me out of gaping non sequiturs, rescued me from dangling participles, then hauled me into fulfillment.

I would like to thank the surviving friends and family of: Dave Shoemaker, who dreamed of 20,320 feet but fell from grace in New Hampshires Arctic Wind; Herb Atwater, who couldnt hold on any longer in the shadow of Denali; Chris Kerrebrock and Mugs Stump, to whom crevasses became an exit from this life; Ray Genet, who loved the mountain as much as people; Johnny Waterman, who chose Denali as his tombstone; and Gretta Berglund, who came to the darkened ranger station after we pulled her corpse from the Sanctuary River. From my time on Denali I have deduced that when you die, youre not screwing yourself but the people you love.

My deepest bow of respect goes to the park rangers and mountain guides and Alaskan pilots who nearly traded their lives for those of fallen climbersoften strangers.

On my one trip to Alaska, in 1982, I was flattened on a glacier landing strip by a skiplane. My hip smashed off a piece of the planes tail, and the tail nearly removed a piece of my hip. Though plane and climber flew and walked again, this imbroglio served as a fitting end to a disastrous climbing trip on which, despite high ambitions, I ascended nothing. Also on that trip, snow fell incessantly, bitter cold gnawed at me, and my partner and his girlfriend stressfully terminated their affair while we were tentbound in a two-week whiteout.

All this transpired on the Shadows Glacier in the Kichatna Spires (one of many Denali settings for this book). While we were flying out, Denali was a massive presence on the horizon. I was torn between a desire to return and climb it, and a feeling that I should avoid Alaska and its beautiful, cold mountains. While nursing my hip, I had the convictioncall it a premonitionthat in Alaska only epics of discomfort and danger awaited me, so I stuck to Himalayan climbing and contented myself with being an armchair mountaineer on peaks Alaskan.

From this vantage, I found that the literature of Alaskan climbing comprises some of Americans finest mountain writing. This is only fitting, for Alaskas mountains demand much from those who climb them. Of all these books, Jonathan Watermans In the Shadow of Denali is stratospherically the finest of the genre. With this book, Waterman has earned a place alongside such great modern American mountain writers as David Roberts and Jon Krakauer, for Waterman writes in the intoxicating style of the inquiring modernist, rather than the nuts-and-bolts manner of the classic alpine storytellers.

These are vignettes about the people whose lives have been touched byand sometimes taken byDenali and its icy neighbors. Waterman has an encyclopedic knowledge of Alaskan climbing history that he has magically woven with his own encounters. His narrative commands authority, clarity, verve, poignancy, and not a little opinion of the many who climb in the Alaska Range. And he writes from many viewpoints: Climbing bum, park custodian, and rescuerWaterman has been all of these.

Over the years, I came to know Jon Waterman through our mutual professions and passions, writing and climbing. When he was an editor at Climbing magazine, Jon was often on the other end of the phone, prying into some expedition of mine, prospecting nuggets of information for mountaineering news. I also relied on Jons voluminous knowledge and his reliable pen for the Alaskan entries within my Encyclopedia of Climbing .