On July 7, Lilia Telenkevic (46), an experienced client on the Mt-19-7 Summits expedition, was pulled off her feet by her rope team while descending below the fixed lines, at around 15,000 feet, on the West Buttress route. During the fall she twisted her left knee.

NPS personnel at the 14,200-foot camp were notified on July 8 and assessed Telenkevic’s injury. Medical assessment confirmed the victim’s leg was non-weight bearing, and due to the increased risk of a ground evacuation a helicopter evacuation was initiated. Due to poor weather, evacuation was delayed until July 11, when the NPS helicopter 3AE evacuated Telenkevic to base camp, where she was transferred to a fixed-wing aircraft and transported to Talkeetna. (Sources: Tucker Chenoweth, NPS Ranger, and Anchorage Daily News.)

(Editor’s note: 2013 was a year of few actual climbing incidents on Mt. McKinley, despite the fact that a record number of climbers summited last season: 787 (including a 78-year-old Alaskan man) out of the 1,151 registered. This was the lowest number registered since 1997. The number of climbers summiting McKinley has topped 700 in only four other years. The success rate was attributed to favorable weather conditions. Non-climbing-related cardiac and spontaneous pneumothorax incidents also were reported but are not counted as accidents for our statistical tables.)