Anchorage Daily News

The number of climbers allowed each year on North America's tallest mountain has been capped at 1,500 by the National Park Service.

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But everyone seems to agree the ceiling is, at least for now, more symbolic than substantive.

Not a single complaint has been heard from the mountaineering community, said Denali National Park Ranger Daryl Miller in Talkeetna.

Possibly, he added, this is because the mountain isn't expecting to witness 1,500 people subjecting themselves to the risks of climbing Alaska's coldest, windiest mountain anytime soon. The most climbers who have ever tried were 1,340 back in 2005.

Since then, annual numbers for climbers on the mountain have fallen. The five-year average, including the record year of 2005, hovers around 1,250. Miller said approximately 1,275 people registered to climb this year, about 1,220 the year before.

The 1,500 ceiling doesn't appear to be an issue, "because it hasn't been a problem,'' he said.

And the cap comes with one small bonus for mountaineers -- gone is a requirement for registration at least 60 days before climbing McKinley. That makes the mountain more accessible to climbers, particularly Alaskans, who decide on last minute ascents.

Still, there are unhappy climbers.

'UNLAWFUL' EDICT

The Fairbanks-based Alaska Alpine Club doesn't think there should be any limit.

"Do Americans have the right to walk on open, public land?'' asked club spokesman Doug Buchanan. "Public land, you're not supposed to be able to put a 'No Trespassing' sign on it unless it's fenced.''

Since the Park Service first imposed the requirement that climbers register to climb McKinley in 1995 and began charging an access fee, Buchanan and his group have questioned the federal agency's right to do so.

"The controlling question, and this came up with the permit fee, is that this is completely unlawful,'' he said.

The club would like to sue the Park Service but lacks the money.

"We don't have the (financial) ability to object,'' Buchanan said. "Climbers are so few. We're picked on effectively because we're so few, and we're so poorly organized.''

Rather than try to engage the bureaucracy in a battle, he added, "we just go climb somewhere else.''

And fret about the hypocrisy of the Park Service bureaucracy in Alaska.

Buchanan noted that while the federal agency has capped the number of climbers on 20,320-foot McKinley at 1,500, the same agency lets 8,000 to 13,000 a year try for the 14,411-foot summit of Mount Rainier in the national park of the same name southeast of Seattle.

HITTING THE CEILING

On average, about three of those people die on the mountain every year. Until three died on McKinley this year, the mountain had gone for a decade without so many deaths.

Some have credited the Park Service permitting program here for the lower death rate. For more than a decade, the agency has put climbers through an intensive safety briefing before permitting them on the mountain. Eleven deaths on McKinley in 1992 sparked creation of the program, which has been generally well received by climbers.

Now, though, the Park Service contends staffing needs to conduct safety briefings are one of the reasons the number of climbers should be capped at 1,500.

"Due to limited capacity by the NPS to provide required safety briefings, conduct ranger patrols, contact climbers on Mount McKinley, and respond to search and rescue efforts, the NPS determined more than 1,500 climbers may compromise visitor and employee safety, potentially resulting in more fatalities,'' according to the Federal Register.

Long a McKinley climbing ranger, the soon-to-retire Miller said "it is hard to say'' when that ceiling might be hit. He's guessing possibly by 2015 unless the Park Service decides to further increase the $200 per head climbing fee. Higher fees discourage people, said Miller, who added that he expects a future increase, "especially if there is no one to fight it.''

Even if the climbing fee goes up, though, he anticipates the number of climbers will slowly creep upward over the long term.

"The reason I say that is the seven summits are very popular; they've become very trendy, like a trophy,'' Miller said.

The seven summits are the highest peaks on all seven continents. People dreaming of trying to reach the goal of standing atop them all often hit McKinley early because costs are relatively cheap compared with Mount Everest or the Mount Vison Massif. The costs for climbing Everest, the planet's tallest peak, or Vison, the highest summit on remote Antarctica, are in excess of $25,000 -- often well in excess.

Despite such costs, Miller said, seven-summit interest appears to be at an all-time high, led by well-heeled climbers from Europe and Asia. The increase in their number appears to have had an affect on McKinley.

"The foreign contingent (of climbers) was almost half this year,'' Miller said. "I can't remember when it has been that many.''

Find Craig Medred online at adn.com/contact/cmedred or call 257-4588.

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