Surviving Denali: A Study of Accidents on Mount McKinley 1903-1990

Rating:
Summary: Learning from the past accidents........
Review: This well written and researched book by Jonathan Waterman tells an interesting and pretty harrowing experiences of things that can go wrong when you climb a mountain. In this case, that mountain is Mount McKinley, the highest peak in North America and a popular climbing peak due to its accessibility. The author takes these "statistics" of injuries, accidents and deaths into a learning experience for the readers of his book. These "statistics" often results from accidents, carelessness, medical edemas, unprepareness, lack of skills and bad luck that can happened to anyone at anytime on Mount McKinley. But the author make it clear that if all the proper precautions, preparation and training were engrained, a climber would have most of the favors on his side (her side).

I think this book probably could use an update. The book ends at 1990 which's 14 years ago and many things have changed and more lessons to be learned.

This book basically go over many of the bad things that happened to people on Mount McKinley and why. The author make it clear that this is not a very safe mountain to climb despite of its yearly heavy traffic and high summit success rate. The book should be considered as a mandatory reading material for any first time climber of Mount McKinley. As Otto von Bismarck once said, "Only fools learned from their own mistakes, the smart ones learns from the mistakes of others". I think the author is trying to get that message out.