Seattle resident Alex Chiu died after falling 3,000 feet from the Mount McKinley West Buttress climbing route onto the Peters Glacier, according to the National Park Service. He was 41 years old.
On June 2, Chiu was descending the mountain in Denali National Park with two other members of his ski mountaineering party who reported that the unroped ski mountaineer fell at Squirrel Point toward the Peters Glacier, a rocky, 3000-foot face covered in steep ice columns known as seracs, a NPS news release said.
After Chiu’s fall, the two other members of his party, who have not been identified, reported that they lowered over the edge as far as possible but were not able to see or hear him. They continued their descent and found additional help before reaching Camp 1. NPS officials did not know