NORTHERN ADVENTURES
Mason Wade
CRASH!!
Surviving the1976 Mt. McKinley Hang Gliding Expedition
by Mason Wade
Copyright 2005, Mason Wade
24 pages, soft cover, b/w photos, 5½ x 8½$8.00
Mason Wade (r) after crash. The dot to right of his elbow points to the remains of his glider left on the mountain.
The expedition climbing up the mountain with hang gliders on their backsINTRODUCTION:
From Gene Maakstad's journal after he rescued Mason Wade...
June 2, 1976, 10 p.m.
Mason Wade took off from the summit [20,320 feet] in his kite, but had problems with take-off and crashed 800 feet down on the south face of Mt. McKinley. His kite was demolished but he gave signals that he was okay. Kent Hudson returned to our 17,000 foot base canp to get Gary Bocarde to bring ropes up to the summit.
Ed Kvalvik and I kept talking to Mason, taking turns in one hour shifts, to keep him awake until 6 a.m. when Gary Bocarde arrived with the ropes to rescue him. I held anchor on the line, on the summit, while Gary belayed down to Mason.
Rope had been put directly from the summit down to Mason. Gary reached him at 9 a.m. on June 3. They jumared up the rope and reached the summit at 2 p.m. exhausted. Mason seemed okay but was bruised.
So begins Mason Wade's recount of his harrowing experience of surviving the crash of his hang glider on the face of Mt. McKinley, the highest mountain in North America. The 1976 expedition was the first, and the last, hang gliding expedition of its kind ever undertaken on the mountain. The other three "flyers" launched safely and had a once-in-a-lifetime experience descending thousands of feet in elevation with only a fabric wing to hold them up.
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