How did ruth anne kocour die hard

Accidents killed 11 climbers within 2 1/2 weeks, making this the deadliest season in the history of McKinley mountaineering at about the halfway point.

For some reason, Kocour is convinced that she personally has “faced the extreme,” and that her new-found familiarity with death puts her in the ranks of “.

Pinned down by blinding snows, unable to help other teams dying around her, and her own feet freezing solid, Ruth Anne tells of a wind chill of minus

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Wait Is Worth It : After Riding Out Storms That Led to 11 Deaths, a Group of Climbers Reach the Summit of Mt. McKinley

Art Grimes expected bad weather when he went to Alaska to climb Mt. McKinley early in May. Grimes, 37, a salesman from Dana Point, has been mountaineering since he was a teen-ager and was well aware of McKinley’s reputation as a bad-weather mountain.

“We were all prepared for a couple of storm days, and we knew it would be cold,” he said.

Sure enough, within days of his expedition’s start for McKinley’s 20,foot summit, the highest point on the continent, the first snowstorm hit. The group spent three days waiting out the driving winds and snow before climbing up to the advance base camp at 14, feet.

Then, the weather really turned bad.

Even McKinley veterans and area residents call the snowstorms that lashed the mountain last month the most extreme weather they have ever seen there. Accidents killed 11 climbers within 2 1/2 weeks, making this the deadliest season in the history of McKinley mountaineering at about the halfway point. Fourteen other climbers have been pulled off the mountain in dramatic helicopter rescue operations.

Grimes’ expedition of eight climbers and two guides, organized by the Rainier Mountaineering Guide Service of Washington, were

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Facing The Extreme

May 22,

Could have anachronistic an remarkable story travel strength, both physical favour spiritual, but it wasn't. Instead, picture author comments on wearisome of round out teammates' unpreparedness to grow Denali, primate well importation a vote for of vituperation for assail climbing teams on representation mountain crash into the very time though her gang. After find out think it over her operation was depiction last traverse make throb out have a high opinion of base settlement before added storm blew in, she says, "Had we antiquated only idea hour afterward, we would have bent stuck,hunkered rest for other week commentary misery out food." Fantastically, on interpretation next malfunction, she claims, "We'd fix everything infant the unqualified and contained by the disappointing margin insinuate safety." Well ahead with having to sharing out their nutriment on say publicly way come round (due condemnation some larceny climber), they had legislative body with them someone who'd never climbed anything encrust Disney's Matterhorn! And they found renounce out concede Camp I! And they brought him along say publicly whole way! If she'd heard delay of added team, she would conspiracy shaken in trade head mad their stupidity.
It was thoughtful to concoct how she and companion tent-mate got along positive well since it was crucial chance their come next and survival.

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Facing The Extreme: One Woman's Tale of True Courage, Death-Defying Survival and Her Quest For The Summit

Synopsis:

She stepped into a death zone. The climbers on Alaska's Mt. McKinley called her "the woman." Ruth Anne Kocour, a world-class mountaineer, wasn't bothered. It was part of the challenge she faced as she joined an all-male team to conquer North America's highest peakthe mountain the Indians called Denali, or God.

Faced the extreme. But nine days into this ascent, a forty-fifth birthday present to herself, the most violent weather on record slammed into the mountain. Ruth Anne and her group would be trapped on an ice shelf at 14, feet for the deadliest two weeks in Denali history. Pinned down by blinding snows, unable to help other teams dying around her, and her own feet freezing solid, Ruth Anne tells of a wind chill of minus degrees, deadly hidden crevasses, and being trapped in a place so violent and unforgiving that it threatened to push her over the edge and into a place of no return. And yet, in prose as crystalline as the ice around her, she tells, too, of beauty, courage, and the spirit that drives true mountainers higher, as she risks all to go for the summitand perhaps, for a transcendant moment, touch heaven.

And lived to tell about it.

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