ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Denali National Park mountaineering ranger Frank Preston was gearing up to rescue a mountain climber sick on North America's tallest mountain when a second call came in early Monday morning.
A man descending Denali had slipped into a crevasse on Kahlitna Glacier. The man was conscious but badly hurt. Fellow climbers lowered a rope, but the force of his fall pushed him through constricted spaces just inches wide.
"The walls of the crevasse were pretty smooth ice, so not a lot of friction," Preston said. "When he fell, in there, he had enough speed and force that he was able to slide down through skinnier places than we could squeeze people down there.