52-Year-Old Climber Dies After 1,000 Feet Fall From Alaska Mountain

A 52-year-old man died and another was seriously injured after falling 1,000 feet off a steep Alaska mountain in Denali National Park. According to The Independent, the two-person climbing team was ascending a technical route on Mount Johnson when they fell from the peak on April 25. Park officials said that Robbi Mecus died of injuries sustained in the fall while climbing a route on Mt Johnson, known as "the Escalator". They added that the approximately 5,000-foot route involves navigating a mix of steep rock, ice and snow.

The other climber, a 30-year-old woman from California, was seriously injured. She was rescued on Friday and flown to an Anchorage hospital, park officials said, as per the outlet. Another climbing party on the route witnessed the fall and alerted the Alaska Regional Communication Center at approximately 10:45 pm, the National Park Service said in a statement.

"The reporting party then descended to the accident victims and confirmed one climber had died in the fall. The responders dug a snow cave and attended to the surviving climber's injuries throughout the night," the statement read. 

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On Friday, a rescue helicopter and two mountaineering rangers arrived in the area and were able to rescue the injured woman. "Together, the ranger and injured patient were short-hauled out to a flat glacier staging area, and then loaded into the helicopter for the flight to Talkeetna," according to the statement. "The patient was transferred to a LifeMed air ambulance at the Talkeetna State Airport for further care," it added. 

The helicopter and rangers returned to the mountain later to recover the body of the climber who died. An investigation into the incident is ongoing.

Meanwhile, Denali National Park and Preserve is about 386km north of Anchorage. In 2022, solo Australian climber Matthias Riimi, 35, was reported dead four days after he went missing on Denali. The same year, a Japanese climber died after falling through an ice bridge into a crevasse on Mount Hunter. In June 2022, Fernando Birman, 48, a climber from New Jersey, also died at an elevation of 19,700ft while trying to reach the top of the mountain.