Denali Historic Resource Study

1. Webb, The Last Frontier, 197-98; Ernest Gruening, The State of Alaska (New York: Random House, 1954), 286-89.

2. James Wickersham, Old Yukon: Tales—Trails—and Trials (Washington, D.C.: Washington Law Book Co., 1938), 203.

3. Ibid., 218-20.

4. Ibid., 220.

5. Ibid., 222-37.

6. Ibid., 255-57.

7. Ibid., 243-53.

8. Ibid., 268.

9. Ibid., 268-77.

10. Ibid., 289; Washburn places them on a spur of Wickersham Wall at an elevation of 8,100 feet, "Chronology," 8.

11. Frederick A. Cook, To the Top of the Continent (New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1908), 69-70.

12. Washburn identifies the extreme eastern branch of the Toklat River as the entrance to Cook's yet unnamed pass, "Chronology," 9.

13. For accounts of Cook's 1903 journey see his book, 1-96; Moore, Mt. McKinley, 40-48; Robert Dunn, The Shameless Diary of an Explorer (New York: The Outing Pub. Co., 1907).

14. Moore, Mt. McKinley, 43.

15. Dunn, Shameless Diary, 59, 60.

16. Ibid., 196.

17. Ibid., 238.

18. See Bradford Washburn's Introduction to Belmore Browne's The Conquest of Mount McKinley (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1956, first published in 1913), for Browne's biography.

19. Ibid., 1-3.

20. This impression is derived from a mountainous literature on Mount McKinley. Brad Washburn's Mount McKinley and the Alaska Range in Literature, a Descriptive Bibliography (Boston: The Museum of Science, 1951) is a good start. His 264-item listing has probably been doubled, at least, in the years since 1951. A modern account of a climbing tragedy, Joe Wilcox's White Winds (Los Alamitos, CA: Hwong Pub. Co., 1981), depicts the other-worldliness of Mount McKinley's upper regions.

21. Moore, Mt. McKinley, 53.

22. Quoted in Ibid., 85. See Claude E. Rusk, "On the Trail of Dr. Cook," Pacific Monthly, October 1910, November, 1910, January, 1911 (reprinted in Mazama, 1945), for Rusk's full report.

23. See Bradford Washburn, "Doctor Cook and Mount McKinley," American Alpine Journal (1958), 1-30, for full discussion of Cook claims and countering evidence, and the basic bibliography on the controversy.

24. Charles Sheldon, The Wilderness of Denali (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1930), 4.

25. Sheldon, Denali, 274.

26. Terrence Cole, ed., The Sourdough Expeditions, Stories of the Pioneer Alaskans Who Climbed Mount McKinley in 1910 (Anchorage: Alaska Northwest Publishing Co., 1985), contains original accounts and critical evaluations thereof; Bradford Washburn, ed., A Map of Mount McKinley (Boston: The Museum of Science, 1977); Moore Mt McKinley, 69-75, 143-53; Francis P. Farquhar, "The Exploration and First Ascents of Mount McKinley," reprinted from Sierra Club Bulletin, June 1949, 95-109.

27. Browne, Conquest, 337.

28. Ibid., 339.

29. Ibid., 340.

30. Ibid., 344.

31. Ibid., 349.

32. Washburn, "Chronology," 14.

33. See Moore, Mt. McKinley, 87-104, for summary of the 1912 Parker-Browne attempt.

34. Paul E. Thompson, "Who Was Hudson Stuck?" Alaska Journal, Vol. 10, No. 1, Winter 1980, 62-65.

35. Hudson Stuck, The Ascent of Denali (New York: Scribner's, 1914), xii.

36. David M. Dean, Breaking Trail, Hudson Stuck of Texas and Alaska (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1988), ix-xi, 150-58; Karstens obituary, Fairbanks News-Miner, Nov. 29, 1955.

37. Dean, Breaking Trail, 159-60. These details derive in part from the Harry P. Karstens Papers, Dartmouth College Library, cited in Note 19, p. 318, of Dean's book.

38. Stuck, Ascent, 150-51.

39. Washburn, "Chronology," 11.

40. Stuck, Ascent, 101-02.

41. Ibid., 108-09.

42. Dean, Breaking Trail, 169-71, 178-81.

43. Basic sources used in this summary of the first ascent include Hudson Stuck The Ascent of Denali, passim, with Brad Washburn route photos and an appendix containing Walter Harper's climbing diary (in The Mountaineers 1977 paperback edition); Bradford Washburn, "The First Ascent of Mount McKinley, 1913, A Verbatim Copy of the Diary of Harry P. Karstens," The American Alpine Journal (1969), 339-48; Dean, Breaking Trail, 150-83; Clara Childs Mackenzie, Wolf Smeller (Zhoh Gwatsan), A Biography, of John Fredson, Native Alaskan (Anchorage: Alaska Pacific University Press, 1985), 40-58; Harry P. Karstens undated ltr to Charles Sheldon (ca. August 1913), in Charles Sheldon Collection, University of Alaska Archives, Fairbanks, Box 1, File 11; Moore, Mt. McKinley, 105-20; Bradford Washburn, "Guide to the Muldrow Glacier Route," undated typescript in Denali National Park library.