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frawg
Jun 19, 2002, 1:32 PM
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Registered: Apr 4, 2002
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http://www.sltrib.com/06192002/utah/746629.htm
Sitting across the dinner table from Kevin Strawn and his wife Linda, then 6 months pregnant, last August, Marta Savage-Stott asked her childhood friend when he was going to give up mountain climbing.
"It is what I live for," Strawn said. "I won't give it up until the day I die."
That day came last week. The 27-year-old former Salt Lake City resident and Brighton High School graduate and his younger brothers, Travis, 21, and Colby, 15, died while attempting to summit Mount Foraker in Alaska's Denali National Park. The brothers planned to spend 17 days in Denali, attempting to reach the top of Foraker and Mount McKinley, the tallest mountain in North America.
The brothers, who had lived in Alaska for the past 10 years, started climbing the 17,400-foot mountain, the third-tallest in Alaska, last week and were last heard from Thursday when they radioed their position at 10,500 feet. Daryl Miller, Denali's south district ranger, told the Anchorage Daily News that the southeast ridge the brothers were climbing is the most challenging route to reach the top of Foraker.
Concern grew when the brothers failed to make radio contact by Monday afternoon. The National Park Service sent a rescue helicopter to search for the Strawns.
According to the Anchorage Daily News, rangers located tracks at 10,500 feet and then discovered the bodies of the brothers, still roped together and on top of the snow, at 8,500 feet. Officials said they are not sure what caused the brothers to fall 2,000 feet and doubt the reason ever eill be known because there were no witnesses.
Jason Belknap met Kevin Strawn in the seventh grade.
They frequented Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons for climbing excursions before and after graduating from Brighton in 1992.
"It surprised me that it happened because he was always so cautious," Belknap said. "If there was a guy you wanted with you in the mountains, it was Kevin. He would show you how everything worked just before going, to let you know everything would be OK. There was something about Kevin in the outdoors where you never questioned him. He had a lot of confidence and you felt secure with him."
The Strawns left Salt Lake City when their father, Jon, took a job in Anchorage. Belknap remembers Jo * Strawn being an accomplished outdoorsman, a trait he passed on to his six children.
"They were really involved in the community while they lived here," said Savage-Stott, who visited Kevin and Linda Strawn last August in Anchorage. "A lot of people knew them and a lot of people will be devastated to hear about this accident."
For Belknap, the reality of losing a good friend will peak when that random call every four or five months from Alaska does not come.
"I'll always remember his smile -- it took a lot to bring him down, especially when he was climbing," Belknap said. "He was so excited about climbing that he would talk so fast he would almost hyperventilate. Climbing was his life."
The Strawns are not the first Utahns to die in Denali.
Salt Lake resident Seth Shaw was the last climber to die in Denali when a 50-foot ice wall fell on the 38-year-old in May 2000. Shaw was taking pictures of his climbing partner, Tim Wagner, also of Salt Lake City, when it happened.
Wagner was buried to his knees and had a broken leg, but managed to dig himself out and find help from other climbers.
Our thoughts go out to the family and friends of these guys.
Peaze,
frawg
[ This Message was edited by: frawg on 2002-06-19 06:33 ]
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clam
Jun 19, 2002, 1:38 PM
Post #2 of 2
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Registered: Mar 8, 2002
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That's a hard one! Prayers for the family and friends.
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