Silverthrone Attempt. With eight days of food and minimal gear Bruce Hickok and I left Wonder Lake for Silverthrone. We used tennis shoes and wet-suit socks to cross the mile-wide McKinley River, which provided us expected excitement. In three days we were at the 10,000-foot Silverthrone col. Our summit was lost 200 feet below it when we were avalanched, luckily extricating ourselves. Poor weather came in and we got no further chance. We walked the last 35 miles to Wonder Lake in 27 hours.

James Hale, Mountaineering Club of Alaska