One climber died and another was seriously injured after they fell about 1,000 feet from a peak at Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska late on Thursday, officials said.
The roped climbers were ascending Mount Johnson, an 8,400-foot peak, along a route known as the Escalator, a steep and technical alpine climb on the peak’s southeast face.
The 5,000-foot route involves navigating steep rock, ice and snow, the National Park Service said in a statement. It typically draws between five and 10 climbing teams each year.
Another climbing party witnessed the fall and alerted the Alaska Region Communication Center around 10:45 p.m. on Thursday. The climbers descended to the victims and confirmed that one climber had died.
“The responders dug a snow cave and attended to the surviving climber’s injuries throughout the night,” the statement said
A park high-altitude rescue helicopter and two mountaineering rangers responded early on Friday.
On Saturday, the Park Service identified the dead climber as Robbi Mecus, 52, of Keene Valley, N.Y.
She was a 25-year forest ranger with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation who worked in the Adirondacks, the department confirmed on Saturday night.
In a statement, the department’s interim commissioner, Sean Mahar, said Ranger Mecus had “demonstrated an unparalleled passion for protecting the environment and New Yorkers.”
“She exemplified the Forest Rangers’ high standard of professional excellence while successfully leading dangerous rescues and complex searches, educating the public about trail safety, deploying out of state for wildfire response missions, and advancing diversity, inclusion and L.G.B.T.Q. belonging throughout the agency,” he said.
The surviving climber, a 30-year-old woman from California whose name was not released, sustained serious injuries and was rescued by Park Service mountaineering rangers on Friday morning and taken by air ambulance to an Anchorage hospital.
Winter weather on North America’s tallest mountain stretches from mid-September to mid-May, during which facilities and services in the park are limited.
The weather was warm and sunny when the accident happened, Paul Ollig, a spokesman for the park, said in an email.
“Conditions can deteriorate during the heat of the day, and the danger of overhead rockfall danger increases,” he said.
In one other recorded death on Mount Johnson, a climber died in 2000 in an avalanche at the base of the East Buttress.
