3 Frostbitten British Mountaineers Rescued by Air From Mt. McKinley

The third and final British climber missing on Alaska’s Mt. McKinley was rescued Friday, a day after his frostbitten companions were plucked off the upper slopes of the nation’s tallest peak, the National Park Service said.

Steve Ball, 42, of Staffordshire, was found Friday afternoon, about 24 hours after he left the other two in search of help, the Park Service said.

Ball had been the least injured of the three when he began his descent Thursday afternoon in the direction of a park ranger camp at the 14,200-foot level.

But he never made it to the ranger camp, said Park Service spokesman John Quinley. A search crew found him Friday afternoon at about the 17,500-foot level.

Ball was dehydrated, hypothermic and suffering from an open fracture of his leg, the product of a fall from 18,200-foot Denali Pass, Quinley said.

“He was in pretty good shape when he left the group at 1 o’clock yesterday,” Quinley said. “So sometime in that 24 hours, he fell off Denali Pass.”

The volunteer searchers, a party of five climbers, including a Canadian doctor, stayed with Ball until he was lifted by helicopter to a lower level of the mountain, Quinley said. From there, he was flown to an Anchorage hospital.

Nigel Vardy, 29, of Derbyshire, and Antony Hollinshead, 33, of Shropshire, were flown off Thursday night about 800 feet from the summit of the 20,320-foot peak, the tallest in North America, the Park Service said.

It was the highest-ever rescue on McKinley using the “short-haul” technique. When that method is used, rescued people are clipped to a cable that dangles beneath the helicopter and are carried to safety, Park Service spokeswoman Jane Tranel said.

The two were flown to an Anchorage hospital early Friday morning, where Vardy was treated for severe frostbite to his face, feet and hands, and Hollinshead was treated for a shoulder injury and frostbite to his hands and feet, the Park Service said.

The Britons had been roped together while ascending on the West Rib, a challenging route used by a minority of McKinley climbers, when they fell about 300 feet, Tranel said.

Vardy, nearly blinded by frostbite, stumbled, which sent him and his roped-together companions, on the tumble.

The fall happened when frostbite closed Vardy’s eyes and made him stumble, she said.

Park rangers began the search-and-rescue mission early Thursday morning, when they received a “mayday” call from the Britons’ radio, Tranel said.

The radio’s battery was dying, and all that rangers heard was that the climbers were injured and above the 19,000-foot level, she said.

Searchers on the mountain tried to find the climbers, but high winds and blizzard conditions precluded an aerial search for most of Thursday, Tranel said.

However, rangers were able to use their helicopter to drop a cache of emergency supplies, including another radio, to the spot where they believed the climbers were located, she said.

When weather cleared just before midnight, the two ailing climbers were located and rescued, she said.

Both said they were disappointed at not reaching the top but added that the weather worked against them.

“We were a gnat’s whisker away, but it was a combination of a lot of things.

“It would have been a worse situation if we had continued on,” Hollinshead said.

As of Friday, officials said, there were more than 350 climbers on McKinley and 1,170 registered to attempt McKinley, which is located in Denali National Park.