Alaska rangers recover body of man who died from fall on North America’s tallest peak

Mountaineering rangers in Alaska recovered the body of a Seattle man who died after falling 3,000ft from a climbing route on Denali, or Mount McKinley, the highest mountain in North America.

The National Park Service said that Alex Chiu, 41, was on the treacherous mountain’s west buttress route when he fell from a location called Squirrel Point, about 12,000ft above sea level.

Chiu’s body was transferred to the state medical examiner on Wednesday, the Denali national park and preserve said.

Two other members of Chiu’s team had reported on Monday that Chui had fallen and that they had lowered themselves over the edge as far as possible but were unable to see or hear Chiu. He was not roped up at the time of the fall.

Ground and air search crews were unable to reach the site until early Wednesday because of very high winds and heavy snow. An unroped French mountaineer fell to his death near the same location in 2010. His body was never recovered.

This is the busiest time of year for climbing the peak, in May and June when climbers descend on the regional town of Talkeetna. There are currently 500 climbers on the peak and more on other mountains and glacial approaches to peaks in the spectacular range that is breathtaking but fraught with risk.

Denali is known to be deceptively dangerous, although it looks relatively benign to ordinary tourists viewing the summit on a clear day from Denali national park. Despite being lower above sea level, the mountain has a greater vertical climb from the base to the summit than the world’s highest mountain, Mount Everest in the Himalayas. Climbers wanting to summit Denali must scale 18,000 vertical feet compared with Everest’s 12,000ft.

The Associated Press contributed reporting