A pair of Polish climbers is being praised for their self-reliance after a harrowing fall on Denali this week, in which one of them waited overnight for the other to reach a camp on the mountain and summon help.
National Park Service spokeswoman Maureen Gualtieri said the two climbers, a man and a woman from Warsaw, were roped together but didn’t have any snow anchors deployed as they ascended the mountain’s West Buttress route. Word that they had been involved in an accident reached Denali National Park rangers between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. Sunday.
“The initial fall was witnessed and reported to the NPS by a guided party, who described seeing one of the two climbers attempting to self-arrest during the fall,” Gualtieri wrote. “The climbing team fell a distance of approximately 1,000 feet, stopping in a large crevasse on the Peters Glacier, out of sight from the ridge above.”
The woman suffered significant spinal injuries in the fall, according to Gualtieri. The crevasse into which the couple descended wasn’t very deep, she said.
“It caught their fall and actually probably provided some protection for the one patient overnight,” Gualtieri said.