A devastating climbing accident on Alaska’s Mount McKinley has claimed the lives of three mountaineers from Latvia, while a fourth climber survived and was airlifted to safety, according to officials and a climbing organization from the victims’ homeland.
The tragedy unfolded Wednesday when four members of a seven-person climbing team plummeted near Denali Pass, positioned roughly 2,100 feet below the 20,310-foot peak of McKinley, which stands as North America’s highest mountain, the National Park Service reported.
Emergency crews rescued the surviving climber Thursday from a mountain basin situated at 17,200 feet elevation. The survivor was subsequently transported by air ambulance to receive medical treatment, park officials stated.
“Operations for the three remaining climbers have transitioned from a search and rescue mission to a recovery effort,” the Park Service said in an online statement, adding the agency “does not release information about fatality victims until 72 hours after next-of-kin notification.”
Park authorities provided limited additional information and did not identify the climbers’ country of origin in their official announcement.
However, the Latvian Mountaineering Association identified the three deceased mountaineers as Inese Puceka, Vija Olte, and Renars Kunigs-Salaks, based on a translation of the organization’s website statement from Latvian to English.
“This is an indescribably painful and irreversible loss for the entire Latvian climbing community,” the group said in its statement.
The mountaineering association also reported that the fourth climber who fell, Mārtiņš Bilzēns, remained in critical condition.
The expedition’s three other members, who were unharmed in the incident, safely returned to a mountain camp after assisting their injured teammates, park officials confirmed.
According to the Latvian Mountaineering Association, the three uninjured climbers intended to descend from their 17,000-foot camp with help from rescue personnel.
The mountain serves as the focal point of the surrounding park and is commonly known to area residents and Alaska Natives as Denali, which translates to “the high one” in the Athabascan indigenous language. The peak received its official designation in 1917 to honor William McKinley, the 25th U.S. president, who was killed by an assassin in 1901.
In 2015, President Barack Obama formally changed the mountain’s name back to Denali, observing that McKinley had never set foot on the mountain and had no meaningful historical ties to the peak or Alaska. The Trump administration later restored McKinley as the official designation.
