North America, United States, Alaska, Mount McKinley

Publication Year: 1973.

This year again we are extremely grateful to those friends who have done so much to help us to put this section together. Without their help it could not exist. We can not thank all those who have helped but do wish to express our gratitude in particular to Dr. Adolf Diemberger, Dr. G.O. Dyhrenfurth, Colonel James O.M. Roberts, Michael Cheney, Kamal K. Guha, Sohli S. Mehta, Ichiro Yoshizawa, César Morales Arnao, Ken Wilson, Vojslav Arko, Mario Fantin and many others.

Mount McKinley. The number of climbers on Mount McKinley continues to rise. There were 27 expeditions, of which 15 put members onto the top. Of 188 climbers, 88 reached the summit. Two expeditions are described in articles earlier in this Journal. A Japanese expedition from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Officers Alpine Club climbed the Muldrow-Karstens Ridge route. The following got to the top: on July 5 Susumu Maeda, Masayuki Ando, Noboru Ayabe; on July 6 Shinichi Kono, Yasuo Kuramochi, Tomoyuki Kaneko, Morikazu Ochiai; on July 7 Kazuo Ito, Matsuhiro Yamaura, Junji Yokota, Toshizo Kaneko and Morikazu Ochiai (again). On July 30 Charles Kroeger and Curt Chadwick and on July 31 Rick Boyce and Dwight Olsen reached the North Peak via Pioneer Ridge. All other climbs were of the South Peak via the West Buttress route: on May 28 Chris Chandler, Patrick Devorin, Ron Fear, Alex Murray, Robert Griswold and Leroy Kingland; in late May Ray Genet, Charles Petrie, Robert Halbersaat, Louis Blochinger, Walter Ruprecht, Paul Etter and Bernard Cabane; on June 7 Bertrand Dubois and Michel Fleuret of the Saudan expedition; on June 29 Paul Gerstmann, Carl Moore, Steve Casebolt, Bob Kastama, Les Gerstmann and Ted Silver; on July 1 Richard Beach, Nick Hartzell, Gary Kirk, James Clark, Bernard Hallet, Robert Thomas, Amy Jo Heyneman and Daniel Austin; on July 9 Hideyo Takeda, Kuniyoshi Yoroi, Mikio Kuku- kawa, Koichi Ikegami and Asao Ando of Hokkaido University, Japan1, on July 13 Richard Barrett, Larry Schoenberg, Howard Marsden, Dennis King and John Rosser; on July 17 Ray Genet, Captains James McMonigle and William Cottrell and Lieutenant Thomas Gardner; on July 21 Yoshio Ogama, Katsumi Nagai, Katsumi Sobue, Masao Yoshikama and Kenichi Mimoto of Nagoya, Japan; on July 28 César A. Pérez de Tudela of Spain; on July 28 Ray Genet, Deborah Wolfe, Terry Cartee, Steve Hackett, Wolfgang Lutz, Gene Stanley, Hank Harrison, Karl Donner, George Walker, Roger Kirkpatrick and Lloyd Sumner. The Swiss Sylvain Saudan made a remarkable ski run from 19,000 feet, but it was not from the summit nor was it the first ski descent of the mountain as he reported.

NOTE: All dates in this section refer to 1972 unless otherwise stated.