Denali's Howl: The Deadliest Climbing Disaster on America's Wildest Peak
By: Andy Hall / Narrated By: Jim Manchester
Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
A dozen young men went up, sooo few came back down… a gripping account of a tragedy
I wasn’t really thinking about it; after all, I was going on the Publisher’s Summary (Yeh read it!) rather than on the cover photo when I chose to listen to Denali’s Howl this week. After all, here in central Texas, winter had hit, and it was cold and really, the wind was a nightmare. I just thought about how AWEsome it would be to enhance the listening experience whilst battling cold and wind on my own.
But my sister pointed it out: All those happy faces on the cover photo, the photo of brave and adventurous young men, some not knowing that’d be their last pic on this planet, that many of them soon would be dead. It was a sobering moment, and it did make me stop and look into each of the faces, wondering who was whom as I began listening of their journey.
Author Andy Hall was but five years old in 1967 when the tragedy happened. Known as the Wilcox expedition, twelve young men of varying temperament joined leader Wilcox to climb to the summit of Denali (As the Alaskans know it). Clear skies gave way to howling winds, and a dozen men went up, but only five were escorted down. Young Andy knew something terrible was going on at the time, his usually cheerful father, the Park Superintendent at the time, is quiet and somber. Hushed voices, quick and meaningful glances are the way all is communicated during the time. It’s not until much later that Andy revisits the history of the expedition, interviewing people, poring through documents, listening to old recordings of communications at the time. When all is said and done, this book is what’s come of it all.
Make no mistake: This is no tell all book, and tho’ MANY mistakes were made, Hall doesn’t beat us over the head with who ultimately was responsible—there are no fingers pointed, no blame cast upon any one person’s shoulders. The readers are left to decide, and what I came away with was that here were twelve bullheaded and testosterone driven men who yakked and yammered at each other and who each, save S. Taylor, took themselves waaaay too seriously. We have one guy who KNOWS he has a problem with altitude sickness who decides he’s going to deny all that and summit the danged peak, damn anyone who tells him otherwise, to the point where he raids belongings and the first aid kit so that he can concoct a flag for himself to plant at the top. We have leader Wilcox who makes disastrous choice after disastrous choice to keep the group together at all costs, until that is, mounting emergencies have him pigheadedly determined to carry on rescue attempts even if it means splitting the group up even further.
That’s all me, from my safe point of much judgment, by the way. Hall might shy away from casting blame, but I’ve no trouble zinging stones, knowing I’d never put myself in such a situation. At first I thought this would be a book showing a divisiveness between climbers and Park employees. I mean, who ASKED these guys to come in and try such a thing, leaving others to come to their rescue, jeopardizing their own lives, utilizing scarce resources in the bargain. No such thing, really. Actually, Park staff cheered and congratulated all who summited, and they encouraged and provided advice to those struggling via radio. It was a tad touching.
All of this was well narrated by Jim Manchester, someone unknown to me prior to this. He did fine with the history of the expedition, with the personalities butting heads, with the teams sent out to find survivors. I was gripped in the story, so it was waaaay shocking when Manchester got to doing quotes of people, and his normal voice turned into some weird character voice, a sort of: Eh-youse-all’s-wiseguys type of voice. To say it was jarring is to say the least. It was just plain weird. Still, this isn’t a dialogue or quote-filled book, so I was spared for the most part. So, uhm? PHEW!!!
I do so love a tragedy book, especially when it regards one from history, and I get to learn about things that were done then. This expedition was prior to extreme cold clothing/gear, so it’s a wonder all twelve didn’t just flat out freeze to death. Plus, what happened to them was a truly once in a century type of storm, hurricane force winds. A later expedition almost ended in tragedy, and they only had to survive hours of storming whereas these twelve had to endure DAYS of it. I mean, five survived!
I s’pose the most heartbreaking part of the book was the epilogue which tells of us what went on for the survivors and the rescuers and the Park staff through the following years. So many went on to die young, of climbing accidents, caught out after spending their lives pushing the envelope. But I suppose one dies as one lives, and they all died doing something they felt driven to do.
Me? I was just glad to get back home and out of the wind and the cold and listen to this audiobook curled up in a blanket. Yeh I was warm inside, but the writing, where the wind and ice and bottomless crevasses are characters in their own right, had me shivering with chills.
Next is to try listening to this during a summer. I’ll bet it still gives me goosebumps and the shivers!
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