Anchorage Daily News

Clear weather helped searchers take a closer look at Mount McKinley on Monday, but it didn't clear up the mystery of two climbers overdue since Thursday.

A high-altitude helicopter made its first extensive search Monday morning amid blue skies and mild winds, and a mountaineering park ranger aboard spotted the remains of a tent camp at 17,000 feet.

"This was our first sighting of it, and it does appear to be fresh, from this season," said Maureen McLaughlin, spokeswoman for the National Park Service. "We don't know of any other climbing teams that have been there, so that suggests the team made it through many of the hazards below -- but we can never be 100 percent sure of that."

Neither the Lama helicopter nor a fixed-wing Conquest 2 that searched the mountain three times Monday saw any other sign of the Japanese climbers, who are attempting to reach McKinley's 20,320-foot summit via the difficult Cassin Ridge route.

McLaughlin said spotters also saw footprints going up the mountain above the abandoned tent camp, but at least some of them were made by a different team of Japanese climbers.

Three men who took the Slovak Direct route to the summit -- a route that merges with the Cassin Ridge route at about 16,400 feet -- told rangers they saw the tent camp on May 17. If the camp at 17,000 feet belonged to the missing men, that means they made it up the daunting, nearly vertical rock climb called the Japanese Coulier, which goes from about 12,200 feet to 13,000 feet.

The three climbers who took the Slovak route have returned from their climb and are awaiting news of the overdue climbers. All five climbed part of the easier West Buttress route together earlier this month to acclimate themselves to high altitudes. Then one group headed off on the Slovak Route and the others took the Cassin Ridge route.

The search will continue today, provided the weather stays good, McLaughlin said. Prior to Monday, high winds and poor visibility limited search efforts to fixed-wing aircraft.

McLaughlin said each climber pays a $200 fee to the park service. Some of the money is used to educate climbers about the mountain, and some helps pay for ranger support on the mountain. The Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C., pays for searches and rescues in national parks, she said.

The Lama was used a second time Monday when it attempted to evacuate a climber being treated for frostbite at the 14,200-foot camp on the West Buttress. The helicopter turned back amid increasing clouds, and the climber remained on the mountain.

Find Beth Bragg online at adn.com/contact/bbragg or call 257-4309.

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