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the most beautiful mountain in the Alaska Range, and it promised to be the hardest
climb in the McKinley massif.
Yet just like Cassin, Terray underestimated Alaskan conditions. With a very strong
cohort of seven younger French alpinists, Terray landed on the Ruth Glacier in early
May, planning to knock off Huntington and then move on to another objective, per-
haps a new route on McKinley. Huntington, however, gave the team all they had bar-
gained for.
The high winds and interminable storms reminded Terray of Fitzroy, but the severe
cold surpassed that of Patagonia. None of the climbers had previously encountered the
quality of ice and snow they ran into on Huntington, from rock-hard black ice to un-
consolidated froth as airy as Styrofoam. Inching their way up the lacy, spectacularly
corniced northwest ridge, the team made pitifully slow progress. After two weeks, they
were nowhere near the final obstacles.
Meanwhile Terray had suffered the worst accident of his big-range career. Descend-
ing from a new high point, he felt a snow ridge crumble underfoot. To avoid falling
into a crevasse, he made a small jump—a maneuver he had often performed in the
Alps. But the ice was so hard his crampons skittered off: suddenly he was plummet-
ing toward the void. Terray's partner, unprepared, hadn't bothered to belay, but stood
tightening a crampon strap. Only a fluke kept both men from being snatched off the
mountain to their deaths, when a thin fixed rope Terray had been trailing, anchored to
a snow picket by the second team only moments before, brought him to a wrenching
halt.
Terray had severely sprained his right elbow. There was no choice but to descend
to Base Camp. Several days later, his right arm useless, Terray watched his teammates
head back up the mountain. For the first time ever, he faced the prospect of lingering
impotent in the rear, while his companions completed a first ascent. As he later wrote
in the
American Alpine Journal:
All morning, sick at heart, I watch my friends climb. Rarely in my entire life have I felt so
lonely and so miserable. I have not even the will to prepare lunch. During the night I can
scarcely sleep, but by morning I have made up my mind.
Terray's resolve was to climb the mountain one-handed. Pulling on his ascending
device with his good left hand, he hauled himself brutally up the fixed ropes to Camp
I to join his comrades.
On May 25, Jacques Batkin and Sylvain Sarthou stood on top of Huntington. The
next day, the other six members followed their track to the summit. As on Makalu, the
whole team had collaborated in a first ascent that saw every member top out.
