The Daily Beast has a minute by minute accounting of an excursion that went tragically wrong and descended to farce:
Denali was off-limits to climbers during much of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since it reopened for the 2021 season, rangers said they have seen a “disturbing amount of overconfidence paired with inexperience,” leading to a sharp spike in serious accidents and emergency rescue calls.
“Rescue is not guaranteed, and your emergency plan should not be contingent upon the NPS,” the National Park Service said in a blog post. “Rescuer safety will always be our first priority, and weather or lack of resources often preclude us from coming to help. The NPS policy is to only respond to immediate threats to life, limb, or eyesight. Anything that we deem falls outside these categories, we will leave you to figure out on your own, and this year we have already turned down rescue requests that don’t meet these criteria.”