Solo Trek to Top of Mt. McKinley : Life Is Fuller for Climber Who Risked Death

Vernon Tejas awoke uneasily in the darkness of his snow cave, high on Mt. McKinley. It was his 20th day climbing the continent’s highest peak, and he was the only living soul for miles.

But now someone, or something, seemed to be in the cave with him.

“It could have been just the wind,” the 35-year-old Alaskan recalled. “But I was pretty convinced right then and there that Naomi was in there with me.”

Vanished in a Storm

On Feb. 12, 1984, Naomi Uemura became the first mountaineer to scale Mt. McKinley alone in winter. He vanished in a storm on the way down, and some veteran climbers believe the Japanese explorer’s spirit still roams the mountain.

Tejas called out, “Good morning!” in Japanese. The roaring wind outside gave the only reply, and Tejas settled back, convinced that the spirit was benign.

The wind eased the next day, March 7, and Tejas climbed to the summit, where he planted a Japanese flag to honor the man who blazed the way for him. Then he did something Uemura failed to do. He came back.

Mt. McKinley, elevation 20,320 feet, is considered North America’s ultimate mountaineering challenge. The vertical reach from base camp on the Kahiltna Glacier to the summit is 13,200 feet--about 2,000 feet greater than the climb up Mt. Everest.

Each May and June, hundreds of climbers flock to McKinley. Unbearable arctic weather forces more than half to turn back short of the summit.

Minus 58 Degrees

In winter, the unbearable turns unbelievable. Temperatures can dip to minus 58 degrees, and storms rake the mountain with hurricane-force winds.

Only four teams have made it to the top in winter since the first expedition in 1967; two of them lost climbers. Uemura was one of two climbers to die in a recent flurry of solo winter attempts.

In all, McKinley’s slopes are littered with the memories of more than 50 dead climbers.

Tejas knows all the grim mileposts--crevassed areas named for climbers they swallowed, a slope dubbed the Autobahn for the many Germans who have fallen there--and he uses them as warning signs.

“I want to challenge myself to live as fully and completely as possible,” he said. “A lot of people will say, ‘You’re doing something that jeopardizes your ability to live.’ But by living on the edge, I can define life a lot easier. It doesn’t make you love it any less. It makes you love it more.”

Returned as a Hero

Tejas returned as something of a local hero. As he sat recently in a sunlit Anchorage cafe, strangers kept interrupting to congratulate him.

They stopped partly because of his accomplishment, partly because Tejas is hard to miss. His head, at its lower elevations, is forested by a bushy black beard; the summit is bare, shaved daily except for a neatly braided rattail.

Tejas (pronounced TAY-hoss) stands 5 foot 8 and has a personality that lives up to his hair style. A veteran of 13 successful McKinley climbs, most of them as a guide for Genet Expeditions, he bounces boisterous yodels off the bergschrund and readily pulls a fiddle from his pack to scratch out folk tunes.

He came to Alaska in 1973, a flatlander from Houston. Within three days, he stood slack-jawed in Denali National Park, watching as clouds unveiled McKinley’s towering north face. Tejas fell in love.

He worked construction jobs and lived in a tent to save money “to get into climbing big time.” He first climbed McKinley in 1978; the next year he was invited back to guide.

Took Part in Rescue

In 1986, he led the first successful winter climb of Canada’s Mt. Logan, North America’s second-tallest peak. Two months later, back on McKinley, he took part in a daring rescue, climbing over the summit ridge and rappelling 600 feet to reach two altitude-sick Korean climbers.

National Park Service rangers discourage solo climbs of McKinley and tried to dissuade another climber who started up the same day as Tejas. That climber, with no previous arctic experience, was flown out with frostbitten toes after five days.

Tejas was not warned.

“I think Vern is a very special case,” said Ralph Moore, a mountaineering ranger who lauds Tejas as a cautious climber and a meticulous planner. “With Vern, it was a very calculated risk. He knew what he was getting into.”

Tejas proudly notes that he can still count to 20 on his fingers and toes, each digit intact and unfrozen. To prevent slips into crevasses on his solo climb, he strapped a 16-foot extension ladder to his body--”my aluminum albatross,” he calls it.

Tejas was flown to McKinley on Feb. 16 by glacier pilot Lowell Thomas Jr. He carried 170 pounds of gear and enough food for 16 days. But as he packed a toboggan, he decided he had too much. He left behind his tent and 20 pounds of food.

Holed Up in Trench

He never missed the tent. Each night he dug a trench, then covered it with a roof of snow supported by his skis, ladder and other gear. As the temperature outside dipped to 20 degrees below zero, the air inside stayed a comfortable 20 to 30 degrees above.

Good thing. Tejas was confined to trenches, or to snow caves dug by previous expeditions, for 16 of his 29 days on the mountain. He hid in them from raging storms, eating half rations to conserve food, stuffing in earplugs to sleep while the wind roared like a locomotive.

Tejas used precious hours between storms to inch upward. Sometimes, he tossed bamboo wands ahead to gauge the slope in a white landscape made featureless by blowing snow. He reached the top, in a whiteout, on the 21st day.

“I put a Japanese flag on the summit, out of respect for Naomi’s spirit, took a few pictures, and got the heck out of there,” he said.

Tejas picked his way down the mountain, finally reaching base camp on the 27th day. He dug in and waited. Two days later, on March 16, the clouds lifted and Tejas was flown the 130 miles south to Anchorage, where he stepped into a circle of reporters and the arms of his girlfriend, Gail Irvine.

Not Solitary Creatures

Tejas said his month on the mountain reinforced his conviction that people are not solitary creatures at heart. It deepened his relationship with Irvine and stirred thoughts of his father, to whom he hadn’t spoken for 19 years.

“The first thing I wanted to do when I got back was call him and tell him I love him,” Tejas said. “Unfortunately, he was out of town, but he called me. He’d heard about the climb.”

Tejas seems to have returned from a month of risking death even fuller of life.

“If you take on a challenge that is bigger than you, and you overcome the obstacles in the way, you become a bigger person for it,” he said. “You find your own limitations, but you also find your true ability in the process.”

Tejas is still exploring his limitations. Last month he led a climb in eastern Alaska’s Wrangell Mountains, and he is scheduled to lead two groups up McKinley this month.

Tejas had hoped to make March’s climb even more historic by being the first to descend from McKinley’s summit hanging from a parasail.

The swirling snow foiled that plan, but the parasail is cached near the summit. With a wide grin, Tejas said he just might be able to find it.