French climber falls 1,000 ft on Denali

A French mountaineer fell to his death while climbing Mt McKinley on Sunday.  It is the first death of this climbing season.Pascal Frison, age 51, and his partner were approaching the area known as Lunch Rocks, near 12,000 feet on the West Buttress, when Frison lost control of his sled.  In an attempt to stop it from sliding over the ridge, both the climber and his sled tumbled towards the Peters Glacier.  Frison, who was unroped at the time, was unable to stop himself and ultimately fell over one thousand feet to a steep crevassed area of the Peters Glacier.

Maureen McLaughlin, park spokeswoman, said that a nearby team witnessed the fall and made a radio distress call to Park climbing rangers.  The park’s high altitude A Star B3 helicopter was at the 14,200 foot level resupplying that camp.  The helicopter immediately flew to the accident site with 2 mountaineering rangers on board as spotters.

Climbing gear and a possible body was sighted, but the steep area offered no possible landing site.  The helicopter and crew flew back to the Kahiltna basecamp.   Mountaineering ranger Kevin Wright returned to the crevasse site on a short haul line at the end of a 120-foot rope attached to the helicopter.  Wright was lowered into a crevasse and saw Frison lying 20 feet further down in the crevasse.  He could not safely reach the climber, but determined that Frison did not survive the fall.

McLaughlin says rangers are now trying to determine whether body recovery is an option.

This accident is the first known fatality in this area of the climbing route.