Climbing Mt McKinley

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32406, 19 September 1970, Page 10

Climbing Mt McKinley

The Coldest Climb. By Art Davidson. The Bodley Heed. 218 pp.

New Zealanders pop up everywhere in the world scene, especially in the world of mountains. Recent newspaper reports told of a successful ascent of 20,320 foot Mt McKinley, North America’s highest mountain, by an international all-women expedition, one of whom was Mrs Margaret Clark of Christchurch. “The Coldest Climb” is the consistently-exciting story of the first winter ascent of the same mountain in February, 1967, by an eight-man party—one of whom was a New Zealander, Dr John Edwards, a physiologist working in Britain. The other members of this historic group were Art Davidson, the author—an independent film-maker from Anchorage and the enthusiastic instigator of the venture; Dr George Wichman, an orthopaedic surgeon from Anchorage who was the expedition’s medical officer; an imperturbable Japanese climber, Shiro Nishimae; Dave Johnston, a forester and exuberant strong-man of the party; Jacques Batkin, a French climbing companion of the late Lionel Terray; Batkin’s keen but inexperienced friend, Ray Genet; and Gregg Blomberg, the expedition’s reluctant and somewhat ineffectual leader. Mt McKinley was named after an Ohio congressman who had never been to Alaska and who was to become one of America’s four assassinated presidents, but the Tena Indians call it “Denali” or the Great One and it is no misnomer. Art Davidson’s idea of a winter ascent was a daring one in an area of minus 50 degree temperatures and 150 miles an hour wind-speeds, and most of his friends were sceptically disinterested. Even Gregg Blomberg, nominal leader of the expedition, had to be persuaded by Davidson to go and never really felt they would achieve the summit (The reader comes to feel that the dynamic Art Davidson himself had more drive and initiative and could well have led the party).

Flown in from the small Alaskan town of Talkeetna to the Kahiltna Glacier, as most expeditions are, by the veteran-pilot Don Sheldon, the first few days passed in a tragic confusion that was symptomatic of the whole trip, but

which Davidson faithfully and honestly records as he does all their successes and setbacks on the mountain. When Sheldon’s Cessna set down the first two men on the Kahiltna they elected to

move on a mile or so before setting up camp, with the result that later

arrivals had to'flounder through an unknown and heavily-crevassed area—the last three in the dark; two men had non-serious unroped falls into crevasses and on the second day, Jacques Batkin, while back-packing without a rope fell 50 feet into a crevasse and was killed. (The party's practice of travelling unroped in such country and of leaving solitary climbers to proceed at their own pace is a surprising one). The tragedy shocked the men deeply, but after the body had been flown out and press releases arranged they decided to go on with the expedition. Davidson highlights his narrative throughout with excerpts from the men’s diaries, and both here and in their behaviour there is a curious excess of high spirits, that one could attribute to high-altitude euphoria or natural American boisterousness, but which either way seems misplaced. While camping at 12,300 feet they experience their lowest temperatures to date: ‘ “Wowee! It’s minus forty-two degrees!” I glanced out of the tent to see Dave leaping about “Kazowie! Hey, you crazy honchos, it’s minus forty-two degrees!” We shouted and began singing nonsense songs at the top of our voices . . Not the Himalayan sahib style at all. But high spirits diminished as they grimly fought their way up the mountain, setting up tent or igloo camps as they went (Dr Terris Moore, author of “Mt McKinley— The Pioneer Climbs,” computes their winter altitudes to be a simulated two thousand feet higher than in summer.) Here the prose is so vivid it becomes a feat of physical endurance to read of the climbers’ sufferings. The climax to the party’s endeavours came with a successful summit bid by Davidson, Genet and Johnson, changing to near-tragedy when the three men were pinned down by storms, for an incredible six days, in a tomb-like ice hole on Denali Pass at 18,000 feet. They survived to crawl down the mountain

long after the rest of the party had given them up for dead and had moved down to lower camps. They were taken off by helicopter at 14,000 feet In assessing the outcome of the expedition Davidson quotes Saint Exupery . .

that new vision of the world won through hardship.” Profusely illustrated with good photographs, this is a wellwritten adventure story of an exceptional calibre.