Mount Denali. Standing at 20,310 feet or 6,190 meters, Mount Denali is the highest point in North America. Compared to some of the other great mountains
on Earth, though, Denali doesn't seem particularly impressive,
at least a first glance. But due to a combination of remoteness, weather, latitude,
and vertical distance needed to be traveled, Denali is a legendary challenge. For these reasons, the success rate
of summit hopefuls is less than that of even the world's highest
mountain, Mount Everest. And certainly, what would a legendary mountain
be without a horrifying incident? This is the 1967 Mount Denali disaster. [music] Today's video is brought to you by Babbel - one of the
top language learning apps in the world. When I started this channel, and I started covering
mountain climbing stories in the French Alps, I thought, "Great. I took French in school for years. I'm gonna impress everyone with my
awesome pronunciation." However, pretty quickly, I realized just how true
the phrase "use it or lose it" really is. After all those years out of school, the pronunciations
just weren't very natural to me anymore. That's one of the reasons why I've been thrilled to
collaborate with Babbel over the past few months. With Babbel's speech recognition, I've been able to
improve my pronunciation just like this. But the coolest thing about Babbel is that it has me
go through a series of different ways to learn the same concepts, similar to how
I was taught French in school. And this is because all of Babbel's lessons
were designed by real language teachers. It's hard to overstate just how powerful
this is in accelerating your learning and teaching you to have real-world conversations. And the best part about this is that
when I'm away from my computer, I can do all the lessons from the Babbel app on my phone. And so with all these features, it's been super easy
and enjoyable to brush up my on French speaking. So, I'm curious to hear what languages
all of you would want to learn, because right now, Babbel is offering 60% off
of subscription for all Scary Interesting viewers, and this comes with a 20-day money-back guarantee, so there's no risk in giving it a try by
clicking the link in the description below. With that said, let's get into today's video. The Seven Summits are the highest points or mountains
on each of the seven continents. Everest is Asia's highest
and also the highest on Earth. Aconcagua is South America's. Elbrus is Europe's, and so on and so forth. Mount Denali is North America's highest point. And although it's part of this exclusive Seven Summits
club among the world's highest peaks, Denali isn't particularly impressive, at least
in terms of elevation. Any one of the 14 8,000-meter peaks
is almost a quarter higher. Aconcagua in South America is higher,
and so are many others in Asia that are only not talked about because they're
overshadowed by the other giants of the region. But elevation alone isn't the full picture. Summit elevation is deceptive. It's only one of several characteristics which can
drastically alter the difficulty of a climb. The first thing to note is that elevation is the height
of a mountain from sea level, not from the surrounding area. If a mountain sits on a 10,000-foot plateau and then
only rises 5,000 feet up from there, the visual appearance won't be nearly as impressive. So another way to measure mountains to get a
true scale for the distance needed to summit, is by measuring from the base of the
mountain to the peak. It's pretty simple. You're just measuring
the actual mountain itself rather than the mountain plus the ground
that it sits on. And incredibly, by this measure,
and therefore, the vertical distance mountaineers need to cover
to summit the mountain, Denali is the tallest from base to peak. This means that although it's only 20,000 feet
compared to Everest's 29,000 feet (8,839 m), the climbable portion of Denali is actually larger. The base of Everest sits at around 17,000 feet (5,182 m)
and then rises to 29,000 feet from there, whereas the base of Denali starts at around 2,000 feet (610 m)
above sea level, but then rises to over 20,000. Depending on where exactly the measurement is taken, climbers need to travel around two and a half vertical miles
to reach the top of Everest, but three and a half vertical miles
to reach the top at Denali. Put another way, if Denali sat on the same
plateau as Everest, it would be almost 5,000 feet taller. And even more incredibly, that's far from everything
that makes Denali a unique challenge. At just 24 years old in 1966, Joe Wilcox had made over 50 ascents of mountains
10,000 feet or higher all across the United States. With such an impressive resumé at such an early age, he started to think about what his
next big climb might be. That year, he worked as a tree cutter on some of the coastal
Alaskan islands near the Alaskan Panhandle. And slowly, his attention turned north toward the
most impressive peak on the continent. Over the course of the year, the idea grew, until eventually, he made up his mind and began
recruiting for his attempt at Mount Denali. As a quick note, at the time,
it was known as Mount McKinley, but was later changed back to the name "Denali", which was the native name it had had
for hundreds of years. In any case, Joe began by recruiting some of the
mountaineers he knew, Jerry Clark and Mark McLaughlin. Jerry then took over some of the recruiting process because he was older and much more entrenched
in the climbing scene and knew more people who might be interested. So then, while Jerry handled the people, Joe worked on
the technical details of the climb. Eventually, he came up with a cost of $300
per person or around $2,000 in today's value, to cover the cost of food, gear and transportation
from Seattle to Alaska. Joe and Jerry then sent out a newsletter to over
a dozen climbers who might be interested. In it was a full itinerary, training recommendations, and reading materials like books on avalanches
and glacier travel safety. Ultimately, of those who received the letter,
six more signed on, bringing the group to a total of nine, including
the three original numbers. From there, they sent in an application to the Alaskan branch
of the National Park Service, which is required by anyone looking to summit. This would be the first stumbling block for the group. Through conversation,
the National Park Service realized that although the members of the group
had basic mountaineering skills, none of them had experience above 15,000 feet. And because about a quarter of Denali
is above that height, this would mean that they were entirely unprepared
for the altitude sickness that can set in as you ascend. Because of this, park rangers recommended that
they try to join with another group from Colorado who planned to make an attempt
at around the same time. Joe and this group would end up speaking briefly
and agreed to cooperate, but still climb independently. This was still too much of a concern
for the park rangers who were hesitant to accept their application as it was. Then, both luckily and unluckily, a member of the more experienced group was
in a car accident where he broke his hand and arm. This meant that he was no longer able to participate, and their group is now one short
of the minimum four required. So rather than abandon years of planning
and training and money already spent, the other group reluctantly agreed to
officially team up with Joe's group. With that, park officials granted the applications,
stipulating that they'd need to carry radios, the more experienced members needed to
supervise the less experienced members, and Joe would need to personally train his team
on Mount Rainier prior to their attempt at Denali. Specifically, they'd need to practice crevasse
rescue techniques for the glaciers they'd be crossing along the way. And provided they follow through
on all those stipulations, they were officially allowed to climb Mount Denali. A few weeks later, at the end of June,
the team was in Alaska, fully loaded with gear, and ready to begin their ascent. The route they'd be taking was from the north
across the Muldrow Glacier first, and then up Karstens Ridge. The standard route these days is from the
opposite direction from the southwest, across something known as the West Buttress route, after being dropped off by plane on the Kahiltna Glacier. However, at the time, the Karstens Ridge route
was more commonly used, in addition to being slightly cheaper, because
it wouldn't require the additional cost of the plane dropping them in. The trade-off is that because the approach is
from the opposite direction, it's more remote. From where the roads end,
the group had to trek for three days across mosquito-infested tundra
until finally setting up at Camp 1 and McGonagall Pass just before the
Muldrow Glacier. Then, on June 22nd, their climb officially began. Another thing about Denali, which makes it so difficult,
is that of the Seven Summits, including Everest, Denali is said to require
the greatest amount of physical fitness. So, to really put that into perspective, despite it lacking the "death zone", which Everest has
at 8,000 meters (26,247 ft), where supplemental oxygen becomes essential, Denali is said to require the greatest amount
of physical fitness. Part of the reason for this is that the vertical distance
needed to travel is larger, so there's more distance spent ascending. But the main reason is that Denali is so remote and Alaska is so sparsely populated that the help
available to climbers is almost non-existent. In contrast, even though Everest is in
a remote region in the Himalayas, it's still situated between the two most
populous countries on Earth. There's an entire industry of native Sherpas
who provide invaluable help in carrying load after load of gear
up and down the mountain. Denali has none of this. So instead, the loads are
carried by the climbers themselves. Like, for example, during the first stage of the climb, each person will have an average pack weight of
around 70 pounds or 30 kilograms, which on its own would be brutal. But in addition to a heavily loaded backpack, climbers have to pull up to 150 pounds or 70 kilograms
worth of gear on a sled behind them. And all of this is in addition to the large distances traveled
while slowly ascending in elevation. On a typical expedition today, the greatest distance
traveled by a group in a single day would be around five and a half miles
while sending about a thousand feet while also carrying and pulling all of that gear. Obviously, as you ascend and establish camps
and eat food, these loads become lighter, but the point remains. The amount of work performed and fitness
required by climbers on Denali is almost like nowhere else on Earth. As you ascend as well, this is through
and around glaciers, over crevasses, and sometimes, deep snow. Then, at the end of a long day of traveling,
camp has to be set up, and everyone has to dig, shovel and cut snow blocks
to place tents and other equipment. So that's what these men did - slowly charging
their way higher up the mountain. And quite literally, they walked for weeks along
the same chunk of flowing ice that is the Muldrow Glacier, constantly on the lookout for deep cracks in the ground
that could be the end of the expedition. First, they established Camp 2
along the Lower Icefall. Camp 3 was set up after that, and before
another section known as the Great Icefall at the beginning of July,
so close to two weeks after they left. Camp 4 was next and was set up below something
known as the Harper Icefall at around 12,000 feet on July 4th. This icefall is part of the larger Harper Glacier,
and is the source of the Muldrow Glacier, which starts near the top of the mountain. It's essentially a massive chunk of flowing ice that slowly makes its way down the mountain
under its own immense weight. The section of it, known as the Icefall, is so steep and treacherous that climbers
have to ascend a ridge to the side, known as Karstens Ridge, because it's
almost completely unclimbable. After making this detour around, they set up Camp 5
along the ridge at 15,000 feet on July 13th - now close to a full month from when they started. At this height, they were finally just one camp away
from striking distance of the summit. By then, they were all suffering from
some degree of altitude sickness, but for the most part, this is minor, and everything
was going according to plan. That same day that they rested in camp,
a weather report came through over the radio and let them know that there was a possibility
of a large storm forming, which was projected to hit on the 16th or 17th, but up until that point, weather would be
almost perfect for summiting. The team talked about what to do,
and eventually, Joe suggested that they try to make a push for the summit
before the storm had a chance to hit. If they left that day, they could make High Camp, then summit the next, and be down before the bad weather
rolled in, and with a day to spare. After further conversation, they decided to pack
five days' worth of food and then set up one more intermediate camp at
16,500 feet to spend the night and acclimatize. This would be known as Camp 6 and would hopefully help
lessen the effects of altitude sickness. So, toward the end of that day, they made the trek
to this camp where they would spend the night. The following day, and for reasons that are
sort of unclear, they split into two groups, although this may have been due to the worsening condition
of some of the less experienced climbers. First was a group of eight who would have to
High Camp or Camp 7 that day. They would then make an attempt the following day
on the 15th. The other four would remain at Camp 6
and pack some additional gear and rest before heading up to High Camp
the next day. So on the evening of the 14th, that group of eight
established High Camp at 18,000 feet by about 7:00 PM. Everything was still going according to plan, and if the weather held, they'd be standing on the massive
summit in less than 24 hours. But then, the following day,
the group splintered further when just four of the strongest climbers
set out at around noon for the summit. This included Joe Wilcox, another member of his party,
and then two of the climbers from Colorado. This left another four at High Camp
to wait for the final four who would be joining them later. Regardless, that day, the weather was perfect - the wind was minimal, the sky was clear, and the temperature was just a few degrees
below freezing. Because of this, the summit team made great progress
and we're ascending at a rate of 500 vertical feet an hour with the occasional stop
for rest and food. Finally, at 6:30 PM, they walked across the final
narrow ridge leading to the summit and stepped onto the icy top of the highest point
on the continent. At the time of this ascent, only around 200
other people can say the same. As they stood on the little plateau, they could see
over everything in every direction. There's quite literally nothing higher for
thousands of miles in every direction. With the amount of time it had taken for them to
reach the top, they wanted to savor their time, and so they spent the next hour and a half
wandering the little space, talking on the radios, and setting off
flares in celebration. Finally, they felt it was time to descend, and started down
the mountain at around 8:00 PM. As far north as Denali is, the sunset in July
is around midnight, so they had plenty of light left to descend by. Even still, it was just a two-hour walk back down
before they stepped into High Camp once again. Right around when the summit team
returned to High Camp, the remaining group from Camp 6
arrived at the High Camp. So now, all 12 of the team members
were at 18,000 feet. They all congratulated each other and talked about how
the conditions were and what to expect. And the plan at this point was still for the
remaining 18 members to summit the following day on July 16th. But when everyone woke up that morning, the wind had
picked up and was getting progressively worse, and gusts were already up to 70 miles (113 km)
an hour. So instead of summiting that day, they were all
forced to hunker down in their tents and wait for the weather to clear. The renewed confidence they had briefly from
the summit the day prior was worn down as they spent the day struggling to prepare food and shoveling snow drifts that
accumulated on their tents. With just two stoves for a total of 12 men, some of them just didn't eat so that they wouldn't
have to walk between the tents and collect supplies in the wind. This was also partially aided by the nausea that some
of them had due to the altitude sickness. At least a few of the party were already having a
hard time keeping food down as it was. As the bad weather wore on, some of the less experienced
climbers talked about not summiting after all, and instead, descending as soon as
the weather cleared. After coming so far, the combination of
conditions and exhaustion had almost drained them of any
of their remaining spirit. But luckily, again, the next day, they woke up
to the sound of nothing instead of the violent flapping of their tents
from the day before. After eating and talking it over, seven of the eight men decided they still want
to make a push for the summit. One of their party, a man named Anshel,
was just too sick to continue and would descend with the four men
who had already summited. At around noon, that group of five had finished
packing all their gear and set off from High Camp en route to Camp 6. As they made their way down the icy slopes,
they occasionally look back up to check on the progress of the others, and weirdly, still by
2:00 PM, they saw movement in the tents. This was later than they'd discussed, and considering that
they had some of the weaker climbers in that group, it's just generally not a great idea to be leaving so late. In any case, the group did finally set off, but only
with six members instead of seven. At the last minute, another climber decided
he was too sick to make the trek and would wait for them in the camp. A few hours into their summit push, another storm started to form on the
upper section of the mountain. This was the first glimpse of not just
any ordinary storm. Another reason why Denali is considered
uniquely challenging is the ferocity of the storms that can develop on it. That same feature which makes Denali
so impressive visually is responsible for creating some
truly horrific conditions. When a weather system approaches
from the Pacific to the south, rather than a gradual rise of a series
of ascending peaks, it essentially slams into the full height of Denali. Like a large boulder sticking out of the river, wind and clouds flow roughly over
and around the mountain. In addition to that, it's situated far closer to large bodies
of water than Everest, for example, and right in the path of the polar jet stream. This current constantly brings weather systems
from the south and right over Denali. And finally, it's also the farthest north
of any of the Seven Summits at just three degrees of latitude below
the Arctic Circle, which can cause some extreme changes in
temperature on top of everything else. At the worst of times, the storms in Denali are
some of the worst on the planet. Sometime that evening, a radio transmission
came in from the summit party and said that they were still somewhere on the
upper slopes, but that they didn't know where, because they were in fog and whiteout conditions. Instead, they said they were gonna bivouac
for the night and hope for better conditions in the morning. And for those of you who aren't aware, bivouacking is typically sleeping outside
in just a sleeping bag rather than a tent. Incredibly, the next transmission they sent out
was at 11:30 AM the following morning when they were standing on the summit. Weather still wasn't great and the winds were higher
than they'd like with poor visibility, but they'd made it. To top it off, the temperature was a relatively warm
6 Fahrenheit or -14 Celsius. The only problem was that of the six that left the
day prior, only five were in the group now. A man named John Russell was unaccounted for
since the night before, and it was assumed that he'd headed back down
to High Camp in the storm. But in all honesty, no one knew
if this was actually the case. This should have been far more alarming than it was, but there wasn't much they could do other than
descend and hope he was there. The final transmission they sent said that
they intended to leave in a few minutes, and then they'd radio once they were
back at High Camp. Unfortunately, shortly after that last call, the storm got dramatically worse, and it was
the last time anyone ever heard from them. As they descended, a low-pressure area from the north,
which brought moisture and humidity, met with a high-pressure system from the south
and created a storm directly over the mountain. At the time, winds were estimated to be up to 150 miles
an hour or 240 kilometers an hour, which on its own would be insane enough. This would've made it almost impossible to
walk along the narrow ridge lines with all their fresh tracks being erased as they went. However, later modeling showed that
near the summit, winds could have been up to 300 miles per hour
or 480 kilometers an hour. Take these with a bit of a grain of salt since
they weren't directly measured, and because if this was true, this would shatter
the wind speed records on Earth. Either way, this storm is said to have been
the worst experienced by any mountaineers on any mountain in the history of mountaineering. To go along with those brutal winds, temperatures dropped
to as low as 30 degrees below zero. This would've made their situation
completely hopeless. They wouldn't have been able to walk,
let alone see in those conditions, and depending on how exposed they were
on the route, they might have been struggling to even
stay on the mountain. It's thought that they may have tried to bivouac
about a thousand feet from the summit, but this would've offered them no shelter
from the storms. And horrifyingly, this storm would last for
four days except for a few small breaks. Even for the men at Camp 5, all they could do was wait and hope for a
break in the storm to descend. The day that the second group summited was the 18th. The following day on the 19th,
the storm was far too bad for anything but hunkering down
in the tents and trying to survive. On the 20th, three of the strongest climbers
from the lower group tried to go back up to High Camp and find the men, but it would take them four hours
to travel just a half mile. The conditions were still whiteout, and a fresh foot of snow
had fallen, completely covering their tracks. When they were eventually forced to turn around, even their new tracks from that day still
were completely erased. At midday, there was a brief break
in the storm for a couple of hours, and the lower group was able to get
a clear view up the mountain and the route that the upper group might have taken. But despite scanning the mountainside for a
long time, there was no sign of anything. No trail, no people, no tents and no radio transmissions
would come in. It was at this point that they realized that
the situation was desperate and sent an emergency radio transmission
to the park ranger station. And then soon enough, the storm set in again and
would continue to rage as violently as it had before. They spent the rest of the 20th and then the 21st
held together in two tents. Eventually, it became so severe that all five men were forced
into a little three-person tent to try to stay warm. Even still, all of their clothes were soaked,
and they could barely eat, drink, and sleep that night or the night of the 22nd. Then, by the morning of the 23rd, they knew that
they couldn't wait in camp anymore. If they stayed any longer, they risk dying
of hypothermia themselves, so at the first sign of a break in the weather,
they set down from 15,000 feet. About midway across Karstens Ridge, they were met by members of the
Mountaineering Club of Alaska who brought hot drinks and dry clothing. One of these members then accompanied them down as the rest of the club members continued higher
in search of the missing. Finally, after over a month in Denali, they walked back
into base camp on July 25th. Joe Wilcox took it upon himself to travel from there
to Wonder Lake to alert the ranger station and request a helicopter to pick up the others. Although they were exhausted and crushed
by the loss of the rest of the party, they managed to escape relatively unscathed. Meanwhile, the storm continued to rage on
until finally coming to an end on the 28th, three days later. The mountaineering club members
were finally able to travel higher up and find what remained of High Camp. In it, they found that tents had been
completely destroyed, the gear strewn all over the place, and there was a climber who was frozen to death,
gripping onto a tent pole. Sadly, the remains couldn't be identified because
of the poor condition of the body. The following day, they retraced the route
the group had taken and found two more bodies at the base of an area
known as Archdeacons Tower. They were found frozen upright and in a
position which seemed to indicate they were bracing against the wind. Again, the bodies were badly frozen
and were in too bad a shape to be identified. Those were the last to be found. The final four members of the group were
somewhere on the mountain, buried or fallen into somewhere unreachable. It's even thought that the speed of the wind
might have been so strong that they could have been quite literally
blown off of Denali. In an attempt to get closure for the families, a year later, in 1968, a humanitarian effort was organized
to try to find and retrieve them, but unfortunately, by then, even less remained. Not a single trace of any of them was ever found. At the time, and maybe still currently, the 1967 Mount Denali disaster was considered to be
the worst in American mountaineering history. And with the gravity of the disaster, pretty quickly, there was controversy about
who was to blame. Naturally, outside observers looked to the
leaders of the expedition, including Joe Wilcox as the person responsible. This was only made more confusing when the
surviving members started publishing books about their accounts of the events, which often
conflicted with one another. Since then, at various points in time, different members have been thought to be responsible. It was only later once the weather was modeled and the
true ferocity of the storm was determined, that it absolved any of them of responsibility,
on the grounds that no one - not even with modern weatherproofing equipment, could have survived what was occurring on the upper slopes. It was and still is the worst storm ever recorded
on Mount Denali. Hello everyone.
Thank you all so much for watching. Welcome to Scary Interesting.
And once again, a huge thank you to Babbel for sponsoring this video. Make sure to check out the link in the description
for 60% off of subscription.
