New memoir recounts historic Denali tragedy

MAT-SU — Jeffrey Babcock wasn’t an Alaskan when he went up Denali, but he was when he came down.

“It certainly was a turning point in my life. It’s certainly the reason I lived in Alaska and spent the bulk of my adult life there,” Babcock said.

Babcock, currently of Green Valley, Ariz., and formerly of Anchorage and Wasilla, was 20 when he made his first ascent of North America’s tallest peak in 1967. He’s written a book about the trip, “Should I Not Return.”

Copies are in his publisher’s hands and Babcock expects they’ll hit local bookshelves this month or early next month.

But, back to the story:

“I was from the East Coast, from Connecticut, and my brother, who is nine years older than I am, was leading the expedition for the Mountaineering Club of Alaska,” Babcock said.

Babcock’s brother invited him along and he accepted. Denali wasn’t a mountain a lot of people climbed back then.

“I think we were the 53rd expedition or something like that,” Babcock said.

That summer, a massive storm hit the mountain and another expedition higher up, the Wilcox expedition, was caught in it. Seven of the 12 members of that team were killed.

“Five survivors came down to us,” Babcock said. “The rest of us went up to look for the other seven of them. Needless to say, it was a coming of age moment for me.”

Babcock wasn’t a combat veteran, a medic or someone in any way used to seeing death that closely.

“We found three bodies,” Babcock said, and it made an impression. It took him more than three decades to finally put it all down in print.

By Babcock’s estimation, “Should I not Return” will be the third book published about that fateful expedition, which has been described as the most deadly in North American Mountaineering history.

But while the other accounts were, in some instances, an attempt to place blame or examine the tragedy from a forensic perspective, Babcock says his is more of a page-turner memoir.

“I’m trying to make it a little bit more of a fascinating entertaining story, not as much of a downer as the other versions that came out earlier about it,” he said. “It’s more autobiographical, it’s more my story.”

He said he’s taken some license with the story, which he explains in the book’s forward. He’s also combined the story of the ’67 expedition with one he led in ’77 up the mountain. He reached the summit both times.

After that first trip up Denali he moved to Alaska. He taught special education in elementary schools in Chugiak and Wasilla. He and his wife still own a house in Wasilla and plan to be back this summer to promote the book.

Throughout his time here, Babcock said he kept up his mountaineering. He had a passion for it, one made stronger during that first trip up Denali.

Prior to his Denali experience, he’d done some climbing on the East Coast, but afterward, he and his brother taught mountaineering classes at Anchorage Community College, the forerunner to the University of Alaska Anchorage.

He led a third trip up Denali in the 1980s, attempting a more difficult route.

“The objective dangers were too great so I decided to turn back on that one,” Babcock said.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.

‘Should I Not Return’

Author: Jeffrey Babcock

Synopsis: The story of the author’s summit of Denali in 1967 and the help his party gave to the Wilcox expedition, seven of whose members died in one of the deadliest North American mountaineering events in history.

Where: Online at shouldinotreturn.com or at online booksellers Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Local booksellers should have it soon. Keep an eye out for possible book signings over the summer.