Denali Report for July 2nd, 2021

This is the Denali Report for Friday, July 2nd, 2021.

As of Wednesday, there were 1018 climbers registered to climb Denali, and all of them were either on the mountain or had already completed their attempts.  Currently, 832 climbs have been completed with a fifty-seven percent summit rate.

Climbing on Mt. Foraker is done for the season, with seven of the twenty-eight climbers reaching the summit.

After last year’s canceled Denali climbing season, there were a number of unknowns coming into 2021.  Back in May, Denali National Park and Preserve South District Ranger Tucker Chenoweth estimated how many climbers might come this year and how that compares to a normal season.

Tucker Estimate

Chenoweth’s estimate ended up not being far off.  With just over a thousand climbers coming to attempt Denali, the numbers are right in between his estimate and what rangers expect in a normal year.

The current summit rate is also well within the normal range.  If none of the climbers currently on the mountain were to summit, rather unlikely given the weather, it would end up below average, but odds are good that, despite an abnormal year coming back from an unexpected break, many statistics look typical.

One thing that did stick out, especially early in the season, was the number of search and rescue operations in the Alaska Range.  The rate of incidents was such that it prompted National Park Service staff to take the somewhat unusual step of publicly calling out risky climbing behaviors on its Denali Dispatches blog.  You can hear more about that in an interview with Tucker Chenoweth from last month.

While all of the attempts of Denali have begun, the season is not yet over.  There are still more than 150 people on the mountain, and the season doesn’t end until the last climber returns to Talkeetna.