Forever on the Mountain: The Truth Behind One of Mountaineering's Most Controversial and Mysterious Disasters

Ten days passed with no rescue attempt, while more than half an expedition was stranded and dying at 20,000 feet during a vicious Arctic storm. The bodies were never recovered. And, for reasons that have remained cloudy, there was no proper official investigation of the catastrophe.

This book begins as a classic tale of men against nature, gambling--and losing--on one of the world's starkest and stormiest peaks. Reckoning by lives lost, it was history's third-worst mountaineering disaster when it occurred--but elements of finger pointing, incompetence, and cover-up make this disaster unlike any other. James M. Tabor draws on previously untapped sources: personal interviews with survivors and those involved in the aftermath, unpublished diaries and letters, and government documents. He consults not only mountaineers but also experts in disciplines including meteorology, forensics, and psychology. What results is the first full account of the tragedy that ended a golden age in mountaineering.

"Tabor's exhaustive look at the doomed 1967 expedition to scale Alaska's Mt. McKinley is an often gripping, detailed account of the infamous climb that remains controversial. Only five of the 12-man team survived the ascent to the 20,320-foot summit, making it one of the deadliest mountaineering disasters in North America. The journey was fraught with tension from the beginning: the National Park Service (NPS) required a group of nine men, led by Joe Wilcox, to merge with a three-member party of Coloradoans, led by Howard Snyder. Wilcox and Snyder clashed almost immediately. Both men survived and went on to retell the trip in books: Snyder in his 1973 version that mostly blamed Wilcox's leadership; Wilcox's account in 1981 cited an overpowering storm as the culprit in the deaths. Tabor (who hosted PBS's Great Outdoors) shows that the NPS was very slow to react and might have saved the climbers with quicker response. His writing about the brutal difficulties of climbing Mt. McKinley in subfreezing temperatures with hurricane-like wind in blizzard conditions is breathtaking, although he lapses into minutiae and repeats details, particularly regarding the accident's investigation. His profiles of the expedition's survivors 40 years later make for a strong conclusion to the book. (July)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"'Tabor's exhaustive look at the doomed 1967 expedition to scale Alaska's Mt. McKinley is an often gripping, detailed account of the infamous climb that remains controversial. Only five of the 12-man team survived the ascent to the 20,320-foot summit, making it one of the deadliest mountaineering disasters in North America. The journey was fraught with tension from the beginning: the National Park Service (NPS) required a group of nine men, led by Joe Wilcox, to merge with a three-member party of Coloradoans, led by Howard Snyder. Wilcox and Snyder clashed almost immediately. Both men survived and went on to retell the trip in books: Snyder in his 1973 version that mostly blamed Wilcox's leadership; Wilcox's account in 1981 cited an overpowering storm as the culprit in the deaths. Tabor (who hosted PBS's Great Outdoors) shows that the NPS was very slow to react and might have saved the climbers with quicker response. His writing about the brutal difficulties of climbing Mt. McKinley in subfreezing temperatures with hurricane-like wind in blizzard conditions is breathtaking, although he lapses into minutiae and repeats details, particularly regarding the accident's investigation. His profiles of the expedition's survivors 40 years later make for a strong conclusion to the book. (July)' Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"In 'Forever on the Mountain,' James M. Tabor revisits the 1967 Mt. McKinley tragedy that claimed the lives of seven men after they were separated from their colleagues and marooned in a vicious storm. The climbing team had come together late and was divided into two factions, which seems to have contributed to the disaster. Joe Wilcox, one of the expedition's leaders, has shouldered much of the blame... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) over the years, both from fellow team members and others. In this book, Tabor sets out to vindicate him.

One of the chief criticisms leveled at Wilcox was that he did not summon an all-out rescue by radio once he lost contact with his fellow mountaineers. Tabor defends Wilcox — attributing his actions to altitude sickness, exhaustion and grief — and fingers the National Park Service for its slow reaction to the climbers. Its rescues depended upon a dysfunctional and convoluted chain of command that, Tabor writes, failed the men, as did the park service's requirement that McKinley expeditions sign on with a rescue group that owned no aircraft. (Tabor is quick to note that the NPS has since changed its policy.)

'Forever on the Mountain' digresses occasionally — discussing, for instance, alpha wolf behavior as it pertained to the leaders of the trip — and the tireless fervor of Tabor's convictions sometimes makes a reader feel browbeaten. But Tabor tells the story of the crisis and its aftermath with dramatic flair and deep knowledge. 'Forever on the Mountain' grips even non-climbers with its harrowing scenes of thorny relationships tested by extraordinary circumstances.

Eliza McGraw is a writer living in Washington, D.C.

" Reviewed by lan Coopermanlan Coopermanlan Coopermanlan CoopermanJonathan YardleyJon MeachamSimon Sebag MontefioreStephen AmidonGary KristEliza McGrawEliza McGraw, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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In 1967, seven veteran mountain climbers died in an Arctic hurricane at 20,000 feet on Alaska's Mount McKinley. Tabor, former host of the national PBS series The Great Outdoors, pieces together the story of an expedition that changed mountaineering and whose victims and survivors remain, in many ways, forever on the mountain. He uses interviews, unpublished correspondence and diaries, and government documents to recount the feud between the expedition's leader, the rescue operation thwarted by the Park Service bureaucracy, and the efforts made by civilian climbers to reach the stranded men. B&w photos are included. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

In July 1967, seven young men--members of Joe Wilcox's twelve-man expedition--died on Mt. McKinley, North America's highest peak.

In July 1967, seven young men died on Mt. McKinley, North Americas highest peak. Tabor draws on previously untapped sources and discusses the controversy surrounding the investigation. The result is the first full account of the tragedy that ended a golden age in mountaineering.

James M. Tabor, a former contributing editor to Outside, attempted Mount McKinley and summitted Mount Sanford. He hosted the PBS series The Great Outdoors and cocreated the History Channel series Journey to the Center of the World. He lives in Waitsfield, Vermont.