The history of aviation on and around Alaska's massive Mount McKinley -- known to Alaskans by its Athabascan name Denali, or "the high one," -- is still being written. Aviators like Joe Crosson, Terris Moore and Don Sheldon were pioneers of that history, which began to be catalogued decades ago, and paved the way for pilots who now make a living flying to North America's tallest peak in a way that is unique to mountaineering.
The fact that four air taxis actually have concessions to land on Denali's glaciers may be less the product of any single pilot or aviator and largely due to a climber. He never flew up onto the mountain but nonetheless left his out-sized mark on mountain flying. As explained in a recent article in Air & Space Smithsonian, "The Pilots of Mount McKinley":
The man responsible for the direction that the air taxi services of Talkeetna would follow earned his living as a cartographer and mountaineer. Bradford Washburn had begun mapping Denali in the 1930s; in 1951, he resumed the effort. That year, Washburn, who died at 96 in 2007, after 41 years at the helm of the Boston Museum of Science, pioneered the route to the summit followed by most climbers today.
The National Park Service is well aware of the appeal of Washburn's route and the critical component aircraft bring to its success:
More than 90 percent of climbers on Denali attempt the West Buttress route, which is considered the least technical way to reach the summit. The Muldrow Glacier on the north side of the mountain is similar with regard to technical difficulty and length, but is far more committing and involved as you begin the climb by hiking in rather than flying to a base camp.
The path from Denali's aviation past to its present is straightforward and leads directly from Matt Nieminen's overflight in 1930 to the current activities of Doug Geeting of Rust's Flying Service and his contemporaries. But as Larry Lowe explains in the Air & Space article, there have been many important contributions along the way, some less known than others but all significant. The rivalry between Don Sheldon and Cliff Hudson is legendary in Talkeenta -- even today -- although Hudson's name isn't as well known Outside and he's received less media coverage then Sheldon. But Lowe notes that was largely by design:
Hudson didn't even list a phone number for the air service in the local phone book. "The number was listed 'Cliff Hudson.' If you wanted to book a flight with him, you had to know him or at least know of him." Geeting flew for Hudson's company before starting his own. Hudson was very much appreciated in Talkeetna, however, where an annual fly-in commemorates him and his son.
For all the hyperbole about the dangers of flying on Denali, and there is plenty of that in every article written on the subject, most Alaska pilots would agree that it carries a set of unique challenges. What is more intriguing about Denali's aviation companies, however, is how effectively they have married their businesses to the business of the summit. Talkeetna Air, K2 Aviation (owned by Rust's Air Service), Fly Denali and Sheldon Air Service have made flying to Denali an intrinsic part of climbing Denali and expanded the earliest business models into thriving operations that fly nonclimbing passengers close to the mountain and land them on a glacier.
A hundred years after Hudson Stuck, Harry Karstens and their expedition traveled by dogsled from Nenana to summit Denali, nearly every 21st century climber starts a summit assault with a flight to Kahiltna Glacier Base Camp, elevation 7,200 feet. The fact that these mountaineers get to experience a little bit of Alaska's bush pilot mystique while doing so is an added bonus.
"There are fewer working commercial glacier pilots than there are astronauts who have flown on the International Space Station," writes Lowe. "The pioneers of the trade were self-reliant, minimally equipped adventurers whose scrapes, survivals, and disasters contributed to the legend of the Alaskan bush pilot."
In many respects, glacier flying on Denali will remain a career that few are likely to pursue, especially with concessions so tightly controlled. But just as Joe Crosson made the first landing with relative ease in 1932, so do the pilots on the mountain today. While the setting may be especially spectacular, the job is remarkably similar to many others across the state. Every Alaskan pilot must decide, as Lowe points out, "...when conditions pose unacceptable risk." The modern safety record on Denali shows just how cautious glacier pilots have become, and also how fortunate today's climbers are to have them.
Contact Colleen Mondor at colleen(at)alaskadispatch.com