I remember Uncle Mikal...

I remember Uncle Mikal telling me about his rescue expedition on Mt. McKinley. According to Mike (Uncle Mikal mostly went by "Mike") the army knew that they would lose a percentage of the men that were sent up the mountain but they decide to mount a rescue anyway.
Mike remembers the reason the rescue was attempted was because there was a senator's son on the plane that crashed. I haven't found any evidence of this in my research of the crash, perhaps it was just some rumor that went around the army at the time.
Mikal attributes the survival of all the men that went on that expedition, to the wisdom of the Chief ranger (Mt. McKinley National Park Ranger) that went with them and taught them how to keep from getting frost bite etc. I found a website that listed the name of this ranger as Grant Pearson.
I was thrilled to find some other sites on the web about the rescue and will include links to them on this blog.
Uncle Mikal passed away a number of years ago and I think it's important that we preserve the memory of this little bit of family history.
This blog is mainly going to be pictures from the photo album that Mikal was giving after the expedition.


 www.cactusweb.net/mckinley/story.html this link tells the story of the rescue quite well.

Uncle Mikal is in the back row right in front of the left side of the door....I'd recognize those ears anywhere!!!(the back row is a bit confusing because it includes men that are slightly in front of others.)