DATE: Sunday, November 16, 1997             TAG: 9711140051

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E4   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MOIRA WRIGHT BODNER, TRAVEL CORRESPONDENT 

                                            LENGTH:  180 lines

COLD CALL OF THE WILD LURES LOCAL MOUNTAIN CLIMBERS

``Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in Nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.''

- Helen Keller

THE DAYTIME temperature was minus 15. At night it dropped to 30 below. Winds of 40 mph howled relentlessly. Gusts reached 55 mph. A dense cloud of swirling, needle-sharp snow and ice obstructed visibility.

North America's tallest mountain was proclaiming its dominance.

After 14 days of grueling effort, John Fitzgerald and Scott Parker were suffering from dehydration and exhaustion 3,000 feet below the peak of Mount McKinley.

The Hampton Roads men knew they needed rest. Going for the top the next day meant 13-plus hours of unrelenting effort. A mile-and-a-half climb lay between them and the 20,320-foot summit.

``I thought there would be hard days and easy days,'' says Parker, 27, of Virginia Beach, ``but every day was hard.''

Adds Fitzgerald, 28, who lives in Franklin: ``It's a mental thing to push your body past its physical abilities. Many times my mind carried my body.''

McKinley is four time zones and more than 4,500 miles from Hampton Roads. Located in Alaska's Denali National Park, it is one of the coldest and most challenging mountains in the world. Its peak is 35 degrees of latitude farther north than Everest and less than 200 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

It is a 15-mile route to the top, gaining about 13,000 feet in elevation from the base camp.

John Fitzgerald's license plate says ``Climb Hi.'' A man of average height with bright blue eyes, he has been rock climbing for four years. He works in the chemical division at Union Camp. In September 1995 Fitzgerald climbed Washington's Mount Rainier. ``It was another aspect of climbing. I found that I loved mountain climbing too.''

The compactly built Parker, a project manager for Tidewater Crane, has always loved mountaineering. In 1994 he and his wife, Catherine, climbed Rainier. The next June they climbed Huayna Potosi (19,879 feet) in Boliva.

Fitzgerald and Parker met in the fall of 1995. Seven months later they were members of an eight-man group going up McKinley with three guides from Rainier Mountaineering Inc. The participants ranged in age from 27 to 45.

The climbing party gathered in early June in Talkeetna, a small town 125 miles north of Anchorage from where they flew to the 7,300-foot McKinley base camp.

Parker squeezed into the back seat of a Cessna 185, surrounded by backpacks, sleds, food supplies, and fuel for the bumpy, 45-minute flight. Fitzgerald was frequently airsick.

From the air it was difficult to judge the height and size of McKinley's many glaciers. Massive peaks thrust skyward. Below were rivers of frozen ice, and large gaping holes that seemed bottomless.

McKinley's north peak was first climbed in 1910, the expedition's members lugging a 6-by-12-foot American flag and a 14-foot spruce pole to the top. In 1996, 1,148 individuals attempted to climbed Mount McKinley; 489 reached the summit. Six died.

The plane's retractable skis allowed for a safe landing on the Kahiltna glacier. Tents of all colors were scattered over the snow-packed surface, turning the base camp into a mini United Nations. Japanese, Korean, French, Russian and German climbers were preparing to ascend.

Fitzgerald and Parker set up camp and sorted out equipment, food and fuel. The rest of the group and the remaining gear arrived the next day about noon.

John Race, a 27-year-old guide, led the way out of base camp and up the West Buttress route. He was hoping to stand on McKinley's summit for the ninth time.

``Right from the git-go, the first day climbing was a crusher,'' Parker recalls. ``Our backpacks weighed about 75 pounds, and we pulled a plastic sled loaded with another 40 pounds of gear.

``It was relatively warm - about 60 degrees - and we were sweating tremendously. We would stop every hour-and-a-half for a rest. We crossed snowbridge after snowbridge. There were crevasses 20 to 30 feet wide. One man wanted to quit right then. It was a grueling five miles.''

The Virginia men were wearing snowshoes for the first time. When it is warm on McKinley's lower glaciers climbers wear snowshoes to evenly distribute their weight on the soft snow. The width of snowshoes makes it necessary to walk somewhat bowlegged so that the shoes don't rub against each other. The awkward gait often causes hip muscles to become sore.

By the end of the second day the group was at 9,500 feet. Parker was elated they had covered so much distance in such a short time. ``I thought `This is going well.' ''

That night it snowed almost three feet. Every 90 minutes, someone had to get up, go out and shovel snow so the tent would not collapse.

Throughout the climb Fitzgerald and Parker shared a tent with Roger, a 45-year-old-investment banker from San Francisco.

``He was a super nice guy,'' Parker says, ``although he snored and was disorganized.'' The warmth generated by a third person made for a warmer tent. Also, it was easier to share carrying the tent and poles.

A McKinley expedition is not a continuous upward trek. The weather determines when a group can move and how far. The Rainier Mountaineering Inc. party spent days hauling food and supplies up to establish higher camps.

If the weather was good, the climbers would stay at the higher elevation; if not they stowed the supplies in a cache in the snow and returned to camp at a lower elevation.

Several nights the three men had to build a snow wall around their tent for protection from winds that could blow them off the mountain.

Fitzgerald and Parker's odyssey included several days of being frustratingly tent-bound by bad weather.

``We realized we were burning up our food and fuel as we sat waiting out the weather,'' says Fitzgerald. The group had started up the mountain with food and fuel for 25 days but had cached four additional days worth of supplies at the base camp. After preparing so thoroughly for the climb, it was disheartening to have McKinley's notoriously erratic weather jeopardize their chances to reach the summit.

Both Fitzgerald and Parker trained extensively for the climb. Parker lifted weights, worked out on a Stairmaster and ran twice weekly. He would put 90 pounds in his backpack and walk around the neighborhood with his wife.

Staying focused on training for a climb that seemed so far away was hard for Fitzgerald in the beginning. ``It seemed like a dream,'' he says. But he ran steps all winter, and rode 1,100 miles on his mountain bike. He worked on developing shoulder and back muscles knowing he would be carrying a 75-to-90-pound pack for eight hours or more daily for three weeks.

But there was no way the men could prepare for the effects of altitude. The human body is accustomed to breathing air that is 20 percent oxygen. According to Dr. Peter Hackett, founder of Denali Medical Research, the blood carries a third less oxygen at 16,000 to 19,000 feet than at sea level. Altitude sickness affects veteran climbers as well as novices.

Headaches, nausea, shortness of breath, loss of appetite, and insomnia are common symptoms. Pulmonary and cerebral edema, both life-threatening conditions, can also result from gaining altitude too quickly. At altitude, constant hydration is essential; standard recommendations call for climbers to drink 6 liters of water daily. Climbers monitor their urine output, checking that it is clear and copious.

As the days wore on, the simplest activity, including drinking and eating, became more difficult. Bitter cold ate away at Fitzgerald and Parker's stamina. Ice grew off beards and mustaches. Spit froze before it hit the ground. Exposed skin froze in 10 seconds.

Fitzgerald and Parker had endured 14 days. It was now time for the final push to the summit. They slowly trudged upward. At Denali Pass (18,200 feet), sustained winds of 50 mph battered the group with stinging snow and ice crystals. Conversation was impossible. Parker and Fitzgerald saw climbers ahead of them stagger and struggle to remain upright. It was bitterly cold, even with three layers of clothing on their legs and four layers on their upper body. They couldn't walk 50 feet without resting. ``I didn't think we could continue,'' says Parker. ``I thought the guides would make us turn around.''

And then the wind stopped. Six hundred feet below the summit they dropped everything but their parkas and cameras to make for easier going. It wasn't much help. Visibility was minimal and the ridge leading to the summit was steep and narrow.

The men put one foot on each side of the ridge and gingerly made their way across the last obstacle to their goal, ignoring the overwhelming exhaustion that threatened.

``I'm going to be so tired I won't be able to take a photo at the summit,'' thought Parker. Fitzgerald was tired and struggled with nausea, as did others in the group. About 350 feet short of the summit ridge he looked up and saw a dump-truck-sized piece of ice break off and tumble down. ``My adrenaline shot up. Then I realized it would miss our group.''

It was 6:20 p.m. on June 17 when Fitzgerald and Parker reached the top of McKinley. It was bitterly cold. The wind howled. Dingy gray clouds obscured the view. They stood on the 10-by-15-foot summit for less than 10 minutes.

``I was excited. I had talked myself into making the summit, zoning out the cold, the tiredness, and the pain,'' says Fitzgerald.

Parker remembers,``I was so exhausted, it didn't really register that I had made it.''

John Fitzgerald and Scott Parker have maintained their friendship since they stood together on Mount McKinley's summit 18 months ago.

Fitzgerald, who is single, continues to seek adventure above the ground. His love of climbing big rock walls took him to Yosemite's El Capitan earlier this month. Next May, Fitzgerald goes back to Alaska to climb the West Ridge of 14,573-foot Mount Hunter.

For Parker, mountaineering has taken a back set to family and career priorities. Six months after the McKinley climb, his son Evan was born. Parker is currently establishing Tidewater Crane's satellite office in Richmond and will move there. But there are mountains in Alaska and South America he still wants to climb. ``I'm not giving it up,'' he declares. ILLUSTRATION: Photos

John Fitzgerald of Franklin, front, and Scott Parker of Virginia

Beach pose on Alaska's Mount McKinley.

A dangerous wind corner greeted Mount McKinley climbers at 13,100

feet.

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