Picture this: Two climbers, one from Irondale and the other from Port Angeles, meet at 14,000 feet on Mount McKinley, the 20,320-foot Alaskan peak that is the tallest in North America, and find out they’re neighbors.
What do they talk about?
“We talked about hiking in the Olympics, and how great those Olympic Mountains were,” said Al Learned of Irondale, at 71 one of the oldest climbers to scale Mount McKinley, who reached the summit May 21.
Didn’t catch name
Learned didn’t get the Port Angeles climber’s name. But he surmises it must have been Marcus Logan, 32, a former architectural drafting teacher at Port Angeles High School, who stood on the summit Thursday.
“I’ll bet you that’s who it was,” Learned said Friday.
Learned returned to the Peninsula on Tuesday. Logan finished his climb down the mountain in Denali National Park on Saturday. Dispatches for both trips are at www.rmiguides.com.
Learned had reached the upper base camp May 22 as he climbed down from the summit when he ran into the Port Angeles climber, who was on his way up.
“I was just surprised that he was from Port Angeles,” Learned said. “I was quite surprised that we would rendezvous on Mount McKinley.”
Learned has climbed Mount Rainier twice and also scaled Mount St. Helens, Mount Hood, Mount Shasta, Mount Whitney and Glacier Peak — but “that’s nothing compared to McKinley,” he said.
“McKinley is a long climb for one thing,” he said. “These others are day climbs.”
The two-week ascent up McKinley was grueling, he said.
“To me, just the plain physical exertion was the most difficult part,” he said.
Each of his three-member team carried 50- to 60-pound packs and about the same amount on sleds up to 11,000 feet.
“There are quite a few steep portions along very narrow ridges that were quite challenging,” he said.
“One factor is the lack of oxygen. It makes climbing extremely very difficult.”
Once he stood on the summit, his major emotion was relief.
“It was just so great to be on top,” he said. “You work so hard to get up there . . . It’s a relief and a really great feeling when you get to the top.”
Learned — the great grandson of a man who settled in Port Townsend in the 1850s who lives in the family cabin, built in 1932 in Irondale — began training for the McKinley climb in January, using the nearby Mount Walker Trail, which has a 2,000-foot gain, for conditioning. He worked up to carrying a 53-pound pack.
“I was in the best condition I could be before the climb but, let me tell you, it was barely enough,” he said.
Oldest climbers
Although Learned isn’t the oldest person to climb to the top of the continent’s tallest peak — that record is held by Michio Kumamoto, who summitted in 2007 when he was 76 years old — he is in rarefied company, according to a timeline through 2007 on the National Park Service website at www.nps.gov/dena/planyourvisit/climbinghistory.htm.
That list says that the oldest woman to reach to top was Toshiko Uchida, who climbed the mountain in 2001 at age 70. The youngest male, Galen Johnston, was 11 when he climbed it the same year.
The youngest female to reach the summit was Merrick Johnston, who climbed the peak in 1995 at the age of 12.
Learned said he climbed the peak “because of the challenge.
“I’ve done a lot of outdoor-type things. I thought I had a good chance of being able to do it.”
Learned has hiked the 2,175-mile Appalachian Trail, 2,660 miles on the Continental Divide Trail and the entire Pacific Crest Trail — 2,650 miles from Canada to Mexico.
He’s tackling a second traverse of the Pacific Crest and has only 450 more miles to go, he said.
“I feel fine. I feel good,” he said. “The only thing I’m looking at for this summer is finish up the Pacific Crest Trail” during three weeks in July.
Birthday on mountain
Logan celebrated his birthday on the mountain, said his father, Dave Logan of Port Angeles.
“Monday was his birthday,” said the climber’s father. “He was hoping to have his birthday on the top.”
Instead, he reached the summit a few days later.
“I stood on the top of the highest point of North America on May 27 at 6 p.m.,” Logan said in an e-mail sent to Peninsula Daily News on Sunday.
“This has been a dream come true for me, as I have been planning and preparing for this since mid-2008.”
A graduate of Port Angeles High School, Logan taught there for four years before leaving in September to attend Fuller Theological Seminary Pasadena, Calif.
He most recently had stayed briefly in Port Angeles, his father said, and his plans once he’s off the mountain are to work a summer job as a chaplain at Glacier Bay National Park near Gustavus, Alaska, before returning to the seminary in the fall.
He has twice climbed Mount Rainier, Mount Baker and Mount Olympus, his father said, and also has scaled Mount Hood and Mount Whitney.
His ascent of Mount McKinley was “the last great challenge before he becomes a missionary,” he said.
Marcus Logan described reaching the summit in his e-mail.
“Our summit day consisted of 13 hours of climbing in winds ranging from 10-20 mph and temps dipping down to -25 Fahrenheit. With wind chill factor temps could have been as low as -35 F.
” . . . Three climbers in my group suffered frost nip on their cheek bones and noses. . . . One of the climbers in my guided trip also got a sun burn on his tongue from keeping his mouth open for too long while climbing at 17,000 ft.”
Both Dave and Marcia Logan were relieved at the news that their son had reached the top.
Dave Logan referred to a dispatch that described the windy, white-out, chillingly cold conditions the team of 11 found at the top.
“It must have been a really tough one,” he said.
Whittaker
While Learned prepares for his long walk and Logan heads for a summer job, another Peninsula mountain climber is making his way back from reaching the peak of Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world.
Leif Whittaker of Port Townsend, 25, followed in the footsteps of his father, Jim Whittaker, the first American to scale the 29,029-foot peak, by reaching the summit last Monday.
His team’s Saturday dispatch on www.rmiguides.com said that the group was in Namache at 11,300 feet.
“Namaste everyone. We are here in Namache Bazaar celebrating Sir Edmund Hillary Day and watching the runners of the Hillary Marathon. Our plan is to head off to Lukla tomorrow and will probably be arriving in Kathmandu. . . . “
A Thursday dispatch read: “Thanks for following our expedition. Until next time . . . “
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Managing Editor/News Leah Leach can be reached at 360-417-3531 or leah.leach@peninsuladailynews.com.
