Denali's toll: North America's highest peak logs 5 deaths in 2 weeks, including rare loss of a climbing ranger

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The brief, hectic climbing season on Denali this year has already claimed five lives and fueled just under two dozen high-altitude evacuations since late May.

Among the dead is a National Park Service ranger, Robin Pendery - the first fatality in the elite climbing ranger corps in more than 25 years.

On any given day at the peak of the climbing season between mid-May and mid-June, there may be hundreds of climbers on North America’s highest peak. Most ascend using the West Buttress Route, the least technical route up the mountain but one that still poses tremendous risks from crevasses, icy ridges and one section in particular: the notoriously steep “Autobahn” between a 17,200-foot camp and Denali Pass, scene of more fatalities than anywhere else on the mountain.

National Park Service officials tallied 516 people on the mountain on May 28, the day after three members of a Latvian climbing team fell to their deaths near Denali Pass.

Climbers say bad weather in late May and early June concentrated the movement of expeditions into narrow windows of time where teams could push for the summit. Talkeetna-based air taxi companies shared photos showing climbers like lines of ants snaking up West Buttress.

Melissa Arnot Reid summited Denali with two friends on June 3. The trio got stuck in Talkeetna for four days, then navigated weather-stalled crowds when they finally arrived at base camp on the Kahiltna Glacier.

The team spent eight days in bad weather, waiting out storms at various locations on the mountain, before reaching the peak, Reid said last week.

“It was extraordinarily busy because of so much bad weather, everyone is forced to move/climb on the few good days,” she wrote in a message. “We got very lucky but it also was the result of 20+ years of mountain time helping to make the most conservative and productive choices.”

Reid - a mountain guide and author of the memoir “ Enough” - is the first American woman to successfully summit and descend Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen.

She learned about the deaths and rescues on Denali after coming out of climbing isolation, she wrote in a Facebook post describing the “toil and trust” that led to the summit. The next day, June 4, brought word of Pendery’s death.

“Any joy quickly drained away, replaced by sadness and pain,” Reid wrote. “But life is not all pain or all joy. Climbing is not all summits or tragedy. It is holding both and knowing how to let the contours of your experience shape the way you live.”

Rescues and recoveries

Since May 26, Denali National Park and Preserve mountaineering rangers have responded to 17 search and rescue incidents resulting in 23 evacuations, according to Scott Carr, Alaska region spokesperson for the National Park Service. Five of those evacuations involved body recoveries associated with three separate incidents.

All occurred on the West Buttress route.

Pendery died on June 4 after she fell into a crevasse near a camp at 14,000 feet. Rescue efforts were not successful, park officials said at the time. Last week, Carr declined to answer specific questions, saying the park service has initiated a formal investigation into the incident.

“Once the review is complete, the National Park Service will evaluate what additional information can be released,” he wrote in an email. “Mount McKinley is a complex high-altitude environment, and it would be premature to speculate on contributing factors before the investigation is complete.”

Pendery, a seasonal ranger from Enumclaw, Washington, joined Denali’s mountaineering staff two years ago. Word of her death galvanized an outpouring of tributes.

Pendery was an emergency room nurse and a mountain guide starting her 12th year with Alpine Ascents International, a Seattle-based guiding and climbing company.

Pendery guided climbs across the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, taught avalanche education courses, led treks in India, and touched the lives of thousands of clients and fellow guides, Alpine Ascents wrote in a social media post that described her “one-of-a-kind spirit” at barely 5 feet tall.

“Robin had a presence that filled every room and every rope team she joined,” the company wrote. “She was brilliant, fierce, funny, endlessly capable, and stronger than most people could believe. She refused to let anyone underestimate her, and there were countless times when the smallest person on the team ended up carrying someone else’s pack down the mountain.”

The last death of a climbing ranger on the mountain occurred in 2000: Cale Shaffer, who died in a plane crash en route to a patrol of the West Buttress route. Well-known pilot and dog musher Don Bowers, as well as two volunteers, were also killed.

Tragedy at 18,000 feet

Four other deaths on West Buttress occurred within a four-day period in May.

Utah resident Logan McKenna, 44, summited Denali but experienced a medical emergency while descending at approximately 18,600 feet just after midnight May 31, Carr said last week. Using a helicopter, Park Service responders recovered his body with help from climbing guides the evening of June 3.

McKenna, a married father of two children, was a surgeon and served as trauma director at Logan Regional Hospital, according to his obituary. He was also singer who performed with a local musical theater group.

McKenna summited the highest point in each of the 50 states, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa and hiked volcanoes in Ecuador. “Time in the mountains was sacred to Logan, especially when shared with his dad, his son, and his sister, Elise,” his family wrote.

The other fatal incident involved the three members of a seven-person Latvian team who perished in a fall near Denali Pass at approximately 18,200 feet on May 27. Carr last week identified them as Inese Pučeka, Vija Olte and Renārs Kunigs-Salaks.

The Latvian Climbing Association expressed condolences to the families of the climbers, their loved ones, friends, and “everyone whose paths in life have brought them together,” according to a translation of a message posted following the fatal incident. “This is an unspeakably painful, irreparable loss for the entire family of Latvian mountain climbers.”

A climber identified by the association as Mārtiņš Bilzēns was critically injured in the fall, officials said. Bilzēns was rescued via a long-line extraction after terrain and site conditions prevented a helicopter from landing, park officials have said.

He was transported to base camp and then medevaced to a hospital. He remained hospitalized in Anchorage as of last week, according to Latvian Public Media.

The three others, including the leader, were able to return to high camp at 17,000 feet but later experienced “declining physical conditions” and required evacuation using long-line extraction on May 29, officials said. Park service aviation crews transported each climber by rescue basket to the 14,200-foot camp before they were flown to base camp, evaluated by medical personnel, and flown off the mountain by air taxi.

The bodies of the three Latvian climbers were recovered June 3.

As of last Thursday morning, there were 380 climbers on Denali, according to park officials. Most were either ascending via West Buttress or acclimatizing there before attempting more technical climbs.

_____

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.