Denali Historic Resource Study

It will be recalled that Harry Liek's debut as superintendent struck Horace Albright as a bit plodding. He wanted Liek to do something outstanding and conspicuous to get the park back in the good graces of Alaskans. Liek replied that in Alaska's climate of opinion he would have to climb Mount McKinley to make a mark.

So that is what he did, in 1932, with Minneapolis attorney Alfred Lindley, Norwegian skier Erling Strom, and park ranger Grant Pearson. This last of the old-time mountaineering expeditions used dog teams to freight supplies to the 11,000-foot camp on Muldrow Glacier. These were the first men to ascend both peaks, climbing South Peak via Karstens Ridge and Harper Glacier, then traversing Denali Pass to North Peak.

Grant Pearson (fourth from right) with a group of government officials and Kantishna prospectors, 1931. Pearson began as a ranger in 1926, and was active in park affairs for the next 30 years. J.C. Reed Collection, USGS.

On their return to Muldrow Glacier they found the abandoned camp of the 1932 Cosmic Ray Party, led by Allen Carpe. A research engineer and mountaineer, Carpe had been commissioned by the University of Chicago to measure cosmic rays on Mount McKinley's high flanks. The Lindley-Liek group searched the camp vicinity and found the body of Theodore Koven, Carpe's assistant. Apparently he had died from exposure after being injured in a nearby crevasse, where signs pointed also to Carpe's fate: ski tracks, a broken snow bridge, and silent, blue depths. Study of this scene indicated that Koven, in trying to help Carpe, had injured himself. Koven's body was eventually retrieved from the mountain, but Carpe had to remain in his tomb of ice.

These were the first fatalities on Mount McKinley. The Cosmic Ray Party also inaugurated the technique of air transport and glacier landings by ski plane. Bush pilot Joe Crosson had set them down at the 5,700-foot level on Muldrow. This mode of access broke the logistical lock on Mount McKinley and became standard practice for later expeditions.

In 1934 the Charles Houston party made the first ascent of Mount Foraker, using pack horses for the overland approach. Bradford Washburn of Boston's Museum of Science began his long association with the mountain in 1936. Sponsored by the National Geographic Society and Pan American Airways, he made an aerial photographic exploration of the massif, taking 200 photographs that revealed the mountain 's most remote and intricate secrets. On this trip he discovered the Kahiltna Glacier-West Buttress route to South Peak, which he would pioneer 15 years later.

Washburn joined the U.S. Army Alaskan Test Expedition of 1942, led by Lt. Col. Frank Marchman. This 17-member party camped in the high basin of Harper Glacier for lengthy testing of cold-weather food, tents, and clothing. Seven members, including Washburn and Terris Moore, chronicler of the pioneer climbs, made the third ascent of South Peak.

In succeeding years, the pace of climbing and route pioneering accelerated. Glacier landings gave access to high base camps that would have been inaccessible by ground approach. The massif's secondary peaks and isolate features were climbed by parties seeking "firsts" in mountaineering annals.

Highlights include:

• 1947, first ascent of Mount McKinley (both peaks) by a woman, Barbara Washburn. On this expedition Brad Washburn performed survey observations from the peaks, and cosmic ray studies at Denali Pass.

• 1951, Washburn and Moore land on Kahiltna Glacier during mapping expedition, setting stage for Washburn's South Peak ascent via West Buttress a month later.

• 1954, Glacier Pilot Don Sheldon makes first commercial flight from Talkeetna to Kahiltna Glacier, thenceforth the standard approach for McKinley climbers.

• 1960, Brad Washburn's map of Mount McKinley published by Boston Museum of Science, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research. The result of 15 years of exploration, survey, and laboratory work, this masterful cartographic and artistic production remains the standard map for climbers.

• 1961, Italian Alpine Club party ascends South Peak via its sheer 6,000-foot ice-and-granite south face, called by Washburn at the time "the greatest achievement in American mountaineering history."

• 1963, a seven-man party led by Henry Abrons climbs North Peak via the 14,000-foot Wickersham Wall.

• 1967, Art Davidson, Raymond E. Genet, and David Johnston make first winter ascent of South Peak, via West Buttress.

• 1967, seven members of Muldrow Glacier-South Peak expedition die in storm during descent, the worst McKinley climbing disaster.

• 1970, first solo ascent of South Peak by Naomi Uemura of Japan (who would die in 1984, on descent, after first winter solo ascent of South Peak).

From the mid-Sixties on, climbing at McKinley began to proliferate and fall into broad categories: 1) standard guided climbs by parties following established, non-technical routes; 2) expedition parties seeking to pioneer ever more difficult routes, including climbs of highly technical features and lesser peaks; and 3) party and solo climbs and traverses that sought "firsts" in new combinations of mode (skis, dogs, hang-gliders, etc.), route, difficulty, and season.

All categories suffered increasing fatalities. More and more people climbed the standard routes, which were less demanding technically, but killed by storm, exposure, altitude sickness, and simple fatigue that led to accidents. As more experts stretched human capabilities to break point with technical feats and innovative combinations, more of them died, too.

All of these hazards came together in 1976—the Nation's Bicentennial—when 95 expeditions assaulted the massif. That year 33 climbers, out of 671 registered, suffered accidents—10 of them fatal. They required 21 separate rescue operations at great cost to the taxpayers. [36]

The NPS has been criticized both for imposing climbing regulations and experience—equipment screening, and for lack of screening and control over climbers. Improved procedures and facilities, spurred by the 1976 crisis, have saved many. These improvements include the ranger station-reception center at Talkeetna, with its specialized mountaineering rangers; medical camps on the mountain; and a network of public and private rescue groups who regularly accomplish prodigies of skill and courage—and sometimes die in their attempts to rescue others.

Modern mountaineering at McKinley has become a philosophical thicket: attitudes toward the mountain (conquest? caper? or spiritual quest?); freedom vs. restraint; life and death, for one's self and perhaps others; and the issue of park and wilderness ideals. Does freedom include freedom from rescue and from the Service's obligation to rescue? How far must people go to prove themselves against this enduring mountain? How bizarre their methods? And at what cost to the mountain's dignity, to rescuers, and to the taxpayer? Seeking the balances between mountaineering freedom and social responsibility, between intrinsic park values and transient human exploit will go on, probably indefinitely, but we must leave it here. [37]

Harry Liek's 1932 climb did help him gain public acceptance as "a real Alaskan." His association with Alaskan leaders on Depression-era commissions, boards, and recreation and economic surveys gave him access to public gatherings where he could push the park message and achieve first-name recognition in the territory's higher councils. [38]

Meanwhile, day-by-day work at the park moved along. Liek queried Washington about his jurisdiction over hunting in the railroad right-of-way, now included in the expanded park. The departmental solicitor's opinion held that it was the intent of Congress that the right-of-way ". . . should be subject to the provisions of law and regulations, applicable to lands within the National Park, not inconsistent with the operation and maintenance of the railroad." [39]

A 1935 report by the Interior Department's division of investigations indicated that Superintendent Liek had worked constructively with concessioner Jim Galen to provide adequate and comfortable visitor facilities at the Savage River camp, which now contained 100 "thoroughly clean and sanitary" tent houses, "10 x 12 feet, with board floors and sides and canvas roof. They contain two single iron beds, a small wood- burning stove, and table and chairs." Meals cost $5.50 a day, tents $3 per person, $4 for two. Round-trip transportation between station and camp cost $7.50.

Savage River cabin and cache, 1946. Both were built in 1931; the cache is no longer standing. C.A. Hickock Collection, USGS.

Park rangers at Stony Creek cabin, 1931. Built in 1926, the cabin is now in ruins. J.C. Reed Collection, USGS.

Alaska Railroad Tour Limousine at Igloo Cabin, 1948. Alaska Railroad Collection, AMHA.

Train service had been adjusted so that visitors could stay at least 24 hours in the park. Two package auto-touring trips, including lodging and meals, (24 hours at $25; 48 hours at $42.50) gave visitors access to Polychrome Pass or farther on to Eielson for close-up views of Mount McKinley. Guided horseback trips cost $15 per day. The flight-seeing trip from Savage River camp to the mountain cost $35.

Special Agent S.E. Guthrey gave high marks to park administration and to the propriety of the superintendent's dealings with the concessioner and with cinematographers employed for a promotional film by the Alaska Steamship Company. Questions on these matters had caused the investigation. [40]

In 1935 Liek proposed a number of physical improvements to be funded by the Public Works Administration, a New Deal agency that provided work for the jobless. In addition to employee quarters and housekeeping items, he wanted a radio telephone system for connections with outlying patrol cabins, a new administration building to replace the old one-room office, an interpretive museum at Eielson, and a ranger station at the Wonder Lake end of the road. He also wanted straight poles for the telephone line between headquarters and Eielson camp because the tripods supporting the line kept blowing down. These improvements were disapproved but would be revived under the CCC's program a few years later. [41]

By 1937, Washington officials, concerned that McKinley Park's purpose as a game preserve continued to be eroded by remote-area poaching, advocated aerial patrols. Living quarters for park personnel were still inadequate for the park's climate. And there were rumblings about a road connection to the park from Richardson Highway that would require significant changes at the park. [42]

That same year the American Consulate General in Calcutta, India, wrote to now Director, Arno B. Cammerer:

I was interested especially in one statement in . . . [your] press release in which it was pointed out that Mt. McKinley rises higher than any other mountain in the world above its own base. That this was so insofar as North American mountains are concerned, I already knew, but from the world standpoint this statement does not stand. I thought you would be interested to know that the famous Himalayan peak, Nanga Parbat, rises to an even greater height on its northern side than the total height of Mt. McKinley. Where the Indus washes the northern base of Nanga Parbat, the river has an elevation of just under 3,500 ft., and less than ten miles back from the river Nanga Parbat pushes its head into the blue to an elevation of 26,620 ft., thus at this point there is a sheer elevation of 23,120 ft., which so far as I am aware is the greatest sheer elevation attained by any mountain above its base. I have not yet had the good fortune to see this mighty spectacle, but I am still hoping that it will be possible before I leave India.

A cryptic and perhaps glum marginal note on this letter states: "verified by U.S.G.S." [43]

Matters of deeper substance also simmered during these years. The National Park Service had inherited a congeries of new areas under the Government Reorganization Act of 1933: many historical areas and a number of lesser reserves that, in the opinion of critics, did not match up to the pure parks created under the original National Parks impulse. The watchdog National Parks Association in 1936 tackled this problem with a paper on "The Place of Primeval Parks in the Reorganized National Park System." Robert Marshall and Robert Sterling Yard stated the gist of the association's thinking: The great primeval parks constitute a separate, superior class, which by title, mode of administration, and permitted uses must always stand distinct from parklands that bear the human signature. The association denied any deprecation of other park types in this segregation. They had their useful purposes, but they were different purposes.

Of the great parks the writers said: "The brilliance of these primeval areas results from their unaltered condition of descent from the beginning. There is no mistaking primeval quality." As modern civilization and exploitation cut across America's wild landscapes only remnants of the primitive remained—the few primeval parks (including Mount McKinley) and certain unexploited segments of National Forests. [44]

Of course this was an old idea, the notion that Nature untrammeled, unaltered by human purpose was yet of value to humans for the uplifting of the spirit inspired by untamed majesty and beauty. This concept treated not only of esthetics, but also of ethics and science. The Deists of the late 18th Century—a number of them founders of the nation—conceived Nature as a great watch assembled and set in motion by the Deity. It was only proper that some zones should run on Nature's time, that human beings should respect and care for the Creator's creation. In such zones scientists could study Nature's unmodified processes and the relationships between its parts. In this view ecology became a sort of intellectualized mysticism.

Thus was revived in the Thirties—a time of desperation, Dust Bowl, and reflections on the Nation's plundered patrimony—the distinction between Nature and natural resources, between superior value and economic benefit, between awe and board feet. This split in conservation philosophy played out a fascinating subset at McKinley Park—a struggle that helped to save it as a National Primeval Park.

As the result of a series of unusually hard winters at McKinley Park in the late Twenties and early Thirties, the Dall sheep population dropped precipitately. [45] Extremely deep snows and severe cold prevented the usual wind-clearing of snow cover from the high ridges where sheep found their winter forage. Many sheep died of starvation and those that survived faced the next hard winter in weakened condition. This condition, only partly recouped each summer, made the sheep easier prey for disease and wolves. Here was a classic combination for a population "crash," which came with a vengeance. Where there had been thousands of sheep, suddenly there were scattered hundreds.

The organizations that had helped found the park had focused their interest on the big game animals, particularly Dali sheep and caribou. The sheep, given Charles Sheldon's interest in them, symbolized the park for the game-protection groups that had worked so hard for its establishment. Responding to Alaskan reports that as many as 1,000 sheep and an equal number of caribou had been killed by wolves over the 1930-31 winter, William B. Greeley of the Camp Fire Club of America enquired of Director Albright in July 1931 how he planned to control predators and preserve the game animals. Greeley's letter ended with a pointed comment that the club's conservation committee ". . . does not in the least share the views of those sentimentalists who would rather let the mountain sheep be wiped out by depredators than to destroy any of the depredators." [46]

This letter and line of argument kicked off a jurisdictional and philosophical struggle that lasted 20 years. The main questions were: Did the Founding Father game-protection groups run this park, or did the NPS? Was specific game-species management—with its corollary of predator control—the proper management scheme for a National Park? Or were all native species protected under an ecosystem-management concept in which predators, by culling the weaker ungulates, kept those species vital and healthy over the long term?

Early on the Service defined its position as one of "preserving all forms of wildlife in their natural relationship." [47] Opponents of this position marshalled alarming figures on McKinley game-species deaths by predation, which could not be proved and were considered suspect by the NPS. The Service attributed declining wildlife populations to weather, migration patterns, and other natural dynamics, including predation as a contributing cause. Next the NPS was accused of bureaucratic foot-dragging in predator control; its theoretical and romantic approach toward predators produced carnage on the ground, leading to destruction of the park's choice game animals. [48] This position fitted well with prevailing game-management and bounty-hunter attitudes in Alaska. Thus, ironically, the Eastern game-protection elite, which had chastised Alaska's "wanton killers of game" during the earlier Alaska Game Law debates, now found itself aligned with the locals against the NPS. [49]

It must be understood that both sides to this controversy, bitter though it became, were moved by the highest motives. Moreover, the successive NPS directors drawn into this maelstrom had no interest whatsoever in alienating the game-protection groups whose efforts had led to McKinley Park's establishment. The differences between them were philosophical at base. These differences were fanned by other parties, for example by those Alaskans who wanted predator control both to increase huntable game and to keep bounty income flowing. But it was the difference in philosophy that counted. The depth and political volatility of the controversy forced the Service to refine its all- species-in-natural-relationship position through scientific studies. In aid of this work, the Service solicited help from some of the Nation's leading mammologists and ecologists. To avoid threatened imposition of statutory requirements for control of wolves, the Service compromised with a limited wolf-control program, a course legitimized by Adolph Murie in 1945. It is to the Service's evolving philosophical position, and the use of science to support it, that we now turn.

Responding to alarming figures for game animals, especially sheep, published by the game protection alliance, Supt. Harry Liek in 1935 made an aerial survey with Alaska game warden-pilot Sam White. They estimated 3,000 sheep in the park. Liek thought that this represented neither a decrease nor a significant increase from the past few years, but rather a restabilization of the sheep population at a lower level after the crash. [50]

In 1938 the Service announced publication of Joseph Dixon's Birds and Mammals of Mount McKinley National Park using that opportunity to further explain a natural regime in which variations of animal populations follow cycles dictated by habitat conditions and other dynamics. "Preservation of the native values of wilderness life," said author Dixon, is the ideal that differentiates NPS policy from those of sister agencies. The National Parks, as Director Cammerer had frequently stated, allow wild animals to behave like wild animals in their natural settings. [51] This let-Nature-take-its-course philosophy might register some disturbing perturbations, such as animal-population crashes. But this non-manipulative approach took the long view of natural rhythms and balances, and was the price of preserving the naturalness that gave ultimate meaning to wilderness parks.

In 1939 the Service sent Dr. Adolph Murie to the park to study predator-prey relationships. Exaggerated accounts of wolf numbers and their slaughter of wildlife would not die. The Service realized that it must develop a sound, science-based rationale for its hands-off (in reality, its light hands-on) wolf/sheep policy, or political pressure would force wolf extermination at the park. NPS biologist L.J. Palmer emphasized the importance of Murie's work both for McKinley Park and for other parks facing similar problems. Only accurate and complete data would validate Service policy and provide precedent across the country. [52]

The voluminous files of the wolf-sheep controversy furnish a fascinating case study of this ecologically motivated agency moving across fields of fire directed by the entrenched attitudes of an earlier age. The notion of favored animals derived from an older philosophy, manifested in game preserves and game-management practices of Europe's hunting nobility. Predators and particularly wolves symbolized the antithesis of Man's rationality imposed on chaotic Nature; to allow them free rein was to regress to pre-civilized times. For the advocates of wilderness and naturalness—called forth by the destructive impacts of industrialized civilization—opponents of the inclusive tenets of ecology were themselves regressive. Into this ideological maelstrom marched Doctor Murie who, respected on all sides, would do his best to reconcile these differences in thought.

Murie's conclusions, after field research in 1939-41, acknowledged that the sheep population was down and had not recovered from the hard winters of the 1927-32 period. But the current relationship between sheep and wolves seemed to have reached equilibrium. In fact, the limited predation by wolves probably had a salutary effect on the sheep, as a population, by eliminating weak and sick animals from the stock. [53]

As a result of Murie's analysis the Service decided to terminate a limited wolf-control program that had been in effect since 1929. [54] This change of policy created a virulent backlash. A petition to the President and the Congress from the Alaska Legislature, backed by nearly all public and private organizations in the territory, called for extermination of wolves in McKinley Park and other NPS areas which, said the petition, served as sanctuaries for breeding wolves that migrated and spread havoc across the land. [55] NPS Director Newton B. Drury, though a strong supporter of his biologists' ecosystem approach, read the signs of the petition and coincident drumming for a wolf control law by stateside game protectionists as omens too strong to ignore. In an ironic note to his chief biologist, Victor H. Cahalane, he asked, "Hadn't something better be thrown to the wolves?" [56]

This message coincided and comported with the results of Murie's second survey, which rang alarm bells. In 1945 Murie counted only 500 sheep in the park. This was getting close to a critical population that might not be able to sustain any further shocks—including wolf depredations—without danger of extinction from the park. [57]

Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes joined Drury in advocating resumption of limited wolf control with his endorsement of a program that called for destruction of 15 wolves in the park. This control program would be conducted under direction of Adolph Murie, who would become the park's resident biologist. [58]

The rules of the wolf-sheep controversy changed qualitatively with introduction of H.R. 5004 in December 1945. This bill would require the Service to rigidly control wolves and other predators in McKinley Park in favor of game animals. [59] As a precedent with System-wide implications, this proposed legislation posed great danger. It would sabotage the Service's painfully established policy of preserving all native flora and fauna as necessary elements of the ecosystem. This challenge forced the Service beyond compromise and delaying tactics, for the very foundation of its wildlife philosophy now came under fire.

Director Drury and his associates worked with key friends of the Service to mobilize opposition. In May 1946 esteemed scientist Aldo Leopold of the University of Wisconsin joined the fight against the bill, volunteering his willingness "to do anything I can within reason to help kill it." [60] Ira N. Gabrielson of the Wildlife Restoration Institute responded positively to Drury's plea for assistance. Kenneth A. Reid of the Izaak Walton League of America urged Congress to reject the legislation on the basis that executive agencies could not respond to changing wildlife conditions if their discretionary powers were abrogated by gross statutory control over Nature's "minute mechanics." The Boone & Crockett Club, though ambivalent on the issue, refused to endorse the bill. William Sheldon, the principal Founder's son, argued not only the biological case but also the ethical and aesthetic ones for keeping wolves in Nature's sanctuaries. For him the park's 500 sheep with wolves was better than more sheep without wolves, for "the wolf is the essence of what we refer to when we speak of 'wild' animals." He concluded with the formula: Necessary control, yes, in the present critical situation; but extirpation, no. With this support at hand, in April 1947, Interior Secretary Julius A. Krug recommended against the bill, pledging such administrative control of wolves as necessary to preserve McKinley's sheep and other ungulates. [61]

Though the wolf-sheep controversy and limited wolf control continued for a few more years, the legislative threat was dead. The Service had threaded its way through both biological and political thickets. By 1952, with noticeable recovery of the sheep and a reduced wolf population, the control program was ended, having destroyed some 70 wolves since 1929.

Among a series of reports from distinguished biologists, solicited by the Service at the height of the controversy, was one by Dr. Harold E. Anthony, Chairman and Curator of the American Museum of Natural History. He advocated the Murie concept of wolf control—for both biological and political reasons—for the term necessary to assure sheep recovery. He made the distinction between beneficial, manipulative control to rectify an extreme natural situation, and the atavistic drive to exterminate wolves as a malignant species—the view that had clouded the wolf-control debates. In the letter forwarding his report to Director Drury, Doctor Anthony neatly summed up the Service's stresses and compromises, and the formula finally adopted for surviving this crisis:

I know [Victor] Cahalane has been holding out valiantly for the principle involved in this problem. He believes the wolf has just as much right in the Park as the sheep. I agree with him on that if this can be kept as a matter of theory. Unfortunately, the situation in the Park, for more reasons than one, has passed to the stage where the average man will not accept it on a theoretical basis. Furthermore, I consider that when one really believes in a principle he should maintain it and not make concessions to expediency. But if a conservationist is trying to get the best possible break on any particular issue, he may reach the point where it is necessary to decide whether he will take a stand that calls for all or nothing. Personally, I fear for the future of the wolf in the Park unless some concession in the way of active control is made now. And I really believe that the welfare of the sheep at this time requires it. [62]

A byproduct of Adolph Murie's assignment to the park during the wolf-sheep controversy was publication of his reports and observations in The Wolves of Mount McKinley (1944). Its portraits of the wolf and associated predator and prey species comprise a brilliant tapestry whose interwoven threads lead painlessly to ecological understanding. In his footsteps the distinguished wolf authority, Dr. L. David Mech, today continues studies of Denali's wolves and the ecosystem that sustains them. It seems that all students of this singular animal—so highly social, so symbolic, so powerful and cunning—fall under the spell of its primeval cry, the very essence of that which is wild.