Mount McKinley is the highest mountain in North America, with an altitude of 6,190 meters above sea level located in the central part of Alaska, despite not being one of the highest in the world, climbing it always represents a great challenge -at the level of the Himalayas- due to its low temperatures and unpredictable weather due to its proximity to the Arctic Circle.
Its original name is Denali, which means «the greatest one» this in the dialect of the native Athabascan settlers, however, it was re-baptized in 1896 as Mount McKinley, the name of an important Republican Party politician who at that time had been proposed as a presidential candidate, but again in 2015 Barak Obama announced that the name «Denali» would be reinstated.
After several unsuccessful expeditions to this mountain, its ascent to the summit is formally recorded in June 1913 by the team led by Hudson Stuck.
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In 1989 a group of Chilean women set out on a great challenge, to be the first Chilean and Latin American female expedition to try to reach the summit of Denali. Today I had the opportunity to talk with María Eugenia Tejos Pugin (Mauge), one of the protagonists of this great feat and a great friend that I have known for 20 years, when I made my first expedition outside of Mexico, she supported me with accommodation and great mountain tips to overcome this challenge.
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For Mauge, the mountain has always been in her DNA, her maternal family is Switzerland and her grandfather frequently visited the central Cordillera of Chile, her mother and aunt took them for a walk through the mountain range since they were very young and when they were young they visited those places for more days. Her most formal beginning was doing hiking, and she says that as she practiced and learned more, the desire to do different things increased, she discovered that the world is much more beautiful, much bigger and that since human has always been a human. tried to get to the top of the mountains. Mauge joined the Club Andino Águila Azul of which she has been an active member for 42 years, held management positions in the club and in the Federation of Andeanism of Chile, during the time she was director she organized many sports activities such as expeditions to Aconcagua and many peaks in northern Chile, until the opportunity came to go to McKinley.
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The expedition consisted of 5 women: María Eugenia Tejos Pugin, Julia Meza Ramirez (+), Rita Monsalves Gamboa, Lidia Gonzalez Vega and Paola Zilleruelo Stuardo; The preparation of this expedition took two years, from the search for financing to the physical and technical preparation, having the Andes so close at hand, they looked for mountains where they could replicate -as much as possible- the conditions they would have -such as the practices of ice climbing-.
They left Chile on June 1 and would be in the mountain for approximately 20 days, of which most of them were with unfavorable weather, visibility almost zero throughout their ascent, with high risks due to hidden cracks, exhaustion was began to become evident after eight days of continuous progression to reach camp 2 (4300m altitude), called Medical Camp, it was a very hard route with very steep slopes where dragging the sleds increasingly complicated the walking and resting was practically impossible, a great relief was that after this torturous day the area was observed in the background to place the tents and be able to rest (2 days of rest) and recover for the second part of the ascent -the hardest and most complicated-. The next difficulty was to clear 600m of unevenness to reach the hill before the «West Buttres» ridge; It is a wall of snow with an inclination between 45 ° and 50 ° that must be equipped with fixed ropes and that must be taken very calmly, it took them 6 long hours. The West Buttres ridge, is a very aerial ridge, cut for 2000m on each side which makes it very exposed to the wind and with this also very dangerous, however, for only a couple of hours they received the gift of impressive landscapes. They spent 8 hours of the most difficult part they reached the high camp (5,200m), advancing supporting winds of around 100km/hr, with bad weather and no visibility, they set up their tent and cut blocks of ice to create a barrier and protect themselves from the wind, the terrain conditions made them far away from each other; In this high camp, due to the weather -with temperatures below -40 ° C-, they had to wait two days to be able to continue with the ascent towards the «Denali pass» (approx. 5,550m) and from there reach the summit , the conditions in the mountain at that time seemed excellent, but, there were some clouds behind the mountain that were advancing and that raised the much feared white wind at the top, the winds reached 120 km/hr with temperatures between 38 ° and 40 ° below zero; Overcoming the Denali pass they continued their ascent to the north summit (6,124m) after several hours with a «regular» climate they reached the summit being the first Latin American (Chilean) women to overcome this tough challenge and descended again to the Denali pass with the intention to climb to the south summit, but at 6,100m (with only 94m left to reach the south summit) the storm again reached them, which unfortunately forced them to descend.
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Mauge tells us about her descent, «It was quite chaotic for us, to the fatigue and tension of the ascent was added the desolation that the storm had caused, finding that the places where we had left storage (equipment, clothing, food, fuel, etc.) they had been washed away by avalanches; the footprint was missing but fortunately the red flags that pointed the way were visible, which allowed us to follow the correct route. In the middle of that «SEA» of fresh snow and almost no visibility, on the third day a clearing was opened in front of a tent installed in a hollow, we consulted its residents if they did not mind that we installed ours in the same place. It was extreme so we only raised a tent, with capacity for two and we got in the five, we were on the edge of our strength, soaked, without fuel and we had not consumed hot food or water for 2 or 3 days; We were already thinking about taking off our clothes, squeezing them and putting them back on (we had nothing dry) when one of the girls from the tent on the side (Romanian) appeared and told us that we had to take a man who was with them, because his partners (a Greek expedition) had left him with a dental infection so that he would return alone to base camp, and they no longer wanted him in their tent, so he would go down with them.
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WHAT TO DO? SUPPORT HIM …… he was a big and strong man of about 28 to 30 years old, he occupied a quarter of the tent, they were puzzled and soaked, and we asked ourselves «with this visitor, how do we dry ourselves?» a girl (the most demure of the group) said «we will never see this guy again, so, I will take off my clothes and squeeze them» she said and it was done; conclusion: 5 naked women with a Greek man half dead because of fever, who settled down as best he could and quiet. The night passed, they kept going down, we reached Talkettna, and he very gratefully repeated to us that we had saved his life, because the Romanian girls had everything, but they didn´t even give him tea, and he begged us not to tell anyone what happened. because if his colleagues found out that he had been with 5 naked women they would bother him forever. «
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The expedition was over, they returned to their homeland, a year passed and one day being at the Club, someone knocked on the door and guess what … the Greek man, the same one they would never see again, and he told them: «I had to come see them. and thank you in person for saving my life «, ahh and he came back the following year!
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As she told us, that descent was very chaotic, 4 or 5 days without fuel, therefore without liquid and nothing hot, with a temperature between 40 and 45 below zero, near the base camp they found other expeditions, none offered a little water… but when the base camp was already in sight, two mountaineers with thermos of tea and chocolate came out to meet them, they had no way of saying thank you, they tried to do it in English, but they didn´t understand anything – and neither did they; at one point, they spoke to each other in Spanish and everything was supreme happiness… at last they managed to understand each other, they were Mexicans! They were two people who had only gone to the base camp to have that experience, but they did not have adequate equipment, they loaned them their parkas, and they agreed to meet in Talkketna, unfortunately it was not possible; They left the parkas with a note, only know that they were two adults with the son of one of them, a boy of about 8 or 10 years old, Juan and JUANITO signed themselves.
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Finally, Mauge remarks «I hope they read this note and after thirty-odd years we can hear from them.«
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So, Mexican friends, if your name is Juan and you were at McKinley Camp around June 1989, you can contact me to put you in touch!
María Eugenia leaves us this comment about her learning of the mountain:
«Be humble, supportive, resign for the common good.
The MOUNTAIN is a whole philosophy of life, nobody is absolute, I learned to be patient, know how to wait, trust and respect my abilities and that of the people who are with me. Give myself the necessary time before acting, accepting opinions and also mistakes from others. Understand that I am not infallible and give all my support to whoever needs it regardless of our differences, in every sense and most importantly I will recognize God, feel that he is always with us and that he allows us to enjoy the wonders that we live in the Mountain, beautiful nature that we must take care of with responsibility, serenity, trust and faith. «
Thank you Mauge for the time dedicated to sharing this great life experience with me, and for your patience in being able to write a little about yourself.
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