View PhotosOn crossing Muldrow Glacier: "I made nine trips, packing all day, with no pack less than 80 lbs. and one time with 114 lbs. I got to know the trail so well I could travel it at night as fast as in daylight and coming back I found I could dog trot it in 55 minutes." "Climbing Brooks was back-breaking labor. At that altitude it made you tired to light a pipe." "What a view! I could see the lights of Anchorage at night over 100 miles away and in the day I could see Cook Inlet and the Kenai country. Turning around, I could see Cheena Slough and the Yukon and Fairbanks about the same distance" From Everett Cook's letter to his mother.
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September 18, 1944: An Army C-47, flying on instruments under icing conditions, crashed near the top of an unnamed peak near Mt. Brooks. The plane, flying from Fort Richardson in Anchorage to Ladd Field in Fairbanks, was carrying 16 servicemen going home on furlough, 2 Northwest Airlines pilots and a civilian. The peak where the plane went down was first thought to be Mt. Brooks, but was later determined to be an unnamed mountain close to Mt. Brooks. The peak was later named Mt. Deception, in honor of the 19 men who died in the crash on that snow-covered peak. The wreck was spotted from the air by Grant Pearson, chief ranger at Mt. McKinley National Park. With Mt. McKinley soaring 20,000 feet in the background, the peak where the wreckage was spotted looked like a sharp, snow-covered mound. In reality, it towered over 12,000 feet, and about 1200 feet down from the summit a dark streak could be seen where the plane had slid down the mountainside. There was little hope of survivors, but Pearson convinced the Army a rescue expedition was justified, if only to recover bodies and try to find out why the plane crashed. Grant Pearson had been chief ranger for several years and had twice scaled the 20,300 foot summit of Mt. McKinley. As far as anyone knew, the peak where the plane went down had never been climbed and that sector of the McKinley range had never been accurately charted. Elaborate organization and planning make the difference between life and death when you go up into the high country in the winter. Army land rescue experts were assembled to lead the operation and by early October, an advance party of 12 men followed a bulldozer 80 miles over a snowbound road from the Mt. McKinley National Park Hotel to Wonder Lake. A base camp was established at Wonder Lake, the nearest point on the McKinley Park Road to Mt. Brooks. Forward camps were set up at Cache Creek and McGonagall Pass, near the edge of Muldrow Glacier to support the party that actually made the climb to the crash site. The base camp received supplies by truck from Mt. McKinley Station on the Alaska railroad. From there, they were taken another 14 miles by tractor and snow jeep to the next camp, Cache Creek. Supplies continued to the forward camps as far as the snow jeeps could travel. From there, they were carried on sleds or parachuted from supply planes. The next camp established was at McGonagall Pass at the base of Muldrow Glacier, 5.8 miles from Cache Creek. Two possible routes to the crash site were found by aerial observation, but the actual route up the mountain had to be scouted by a ground party before a decision was made. The advance party was ordered to wait at McGonagall Pass until special climbing equipment could be air dropped. The party waited several days for the climbing equipment to be air-dropped in. |
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