Jim Wickwire - Crevasse On McKinley

Crevasse On McKinley

In 1981, Wickwire was traversing a glacier on Mount McKinley (also known as Denali) with a 25 year-old Mount Rainier guide named Chris Kerrebrock in the lead. They were roped together and dragging a sled. Glaciers often have deep crevasses, which can be concealed by thin layers of snow. A crevasse opened up underneath Kerrebrock who fell in headfirst, pulling Wickwire and the sled in on top of him, since they were roped together. Wickwire was able to slowly climb out with an ice axe, but was unable to rescue Kerrebrock, who was alive but wedged in tightly (Kerrebrock couldn't feel his hand when Wickwire touched it) still wearing his backpack and upside down. Wickwire had broken his shoulder, but had slowly scaled the ice walls of the crevasse, 6 inches at a time, with his ice axe and crampons. Once upon the rim surface he attempted to dislodge Kerrebrock, who was still very much conscious, by pulling forcefully on the rope. Wickwire then descended on rope anchored to a snow picket and attempted moving Kerrebrock's tightly-wedged backpack from within the crevasse, but all efforts were futile. Resigned to his fate, the two men said their goodbyes. Kerrebrock subsequently died late in the night. (Kerrebrock had instructed Wickwire to leave it up to his father to decide whether to leave his body in the crevasse or not. Wickwire led park rangers to the site and they extracted Kerrebrock from the location).

Upon getting down from the mountain, which took several days and was fraught with more crevasse dangers, Wickwire was bullied by his guilt for months for not being able to save Kerrebrock. He thought about quitting the upcoming expedition of Mount Everest stating, “the furthest thought in my mind was Everest at that point”. His wife talked to him at that point and convinced him to think about it for a length of time before deciding one way or the other, so there would be no regrets later on down the road. Wickwire listened to his wife and in 1982 he was climbing the slopes of Everest with the planned group for the expedition.

At the time of Kerrebrock's death, Wickwire had been working for twenty years to become "one of the world's most accomplished mountain climbers". He was also known to have neglected his marriage to his wife, Mary Lou, his five children, and his law practice, just to risk his life on mountain peaks.