Molly of Denali
The Great One
Clip: Special | 4m 14sVideo has Closed Captions
Students learn even more about the Great One, the largest mountain in North America!
Think you can climb the largest mountain in North America? In this extended look, students travel from the Talkeetna Historical Society Museum to the Walter Harper Ranger Station and then to Denali itself! Learn even more about the Great One, hear about Walter Harper’s first ascent, and get a look at the types of climbing gear that were used over a hundred years ago!
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Molly of Denali
The Great One
Clip: Special | 4m 14sVideo has Closed Captions
Think you can climb the largest mountain in North America? In this extended look, students travel from the Talkeetna Historical Society Museum to the Walter Harper Ranger Station and then to Denali itself! Learn even more about the Great One, hear about Walter Harper’s first ascent, and get a look at the types of climbing gear that were used over a hundred years ago!
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Where to Watch Molly of Denali
Molly of Denali is available to stream on pbs.org and the PBS app.
♪ ♪ KID: We filmed a video about how people climb Denali today compared to how people first climbed Denali, and here it is.
This is Denali.
It's 20,310 feet tall, and it is part of the Alaska Range in Denali Park and Preserve in Alaska.
The name Denali comes from the Koyukon Athabascan people of the area, and it means "the great one."
People have been climbing to the top of this mountain for over 100 years.
A lot has changed since the first people reached the summit.
We talked to experts who explained what it's like to climb Denali today and what it was like to climb the mountain over 100 years ago.
Guys, my name is Dana.
I went and climbed Denali with my friend Sam here about five years ago.
TUCKER: I'm Ranger Tucker, and I'm a Denali ranger.
Who was the first person to climb Denali?
This is the Walter Harper Talkeetna Ranger Station, and it's named after Walter Harper, who was a Native Alaskan who climbed Denali on the first ascent.
KID: Walter Harper climbed with Hudson Stuck, Harry Karstens, and Robert Tatum, with help from John Fredson and Esaias George.
♪ ♪ It was a very hard trip.
They made it back in 1913.
So it was over 100 years ago that they made it up there.
It was really hard to climb Denali back then, because the hardest part of their climb was getting to the mountain: the mosquitoes, the bears, the rivers.
They took off from Nenana, took dog sled to the mountain.
KID: It took the group a lot of work just to make it to the base of the mountain, and then it took over 50 days to climb to the top.
SAM: You realize all the hard work that, you know, the very first expedition had to do in 1913.
They must have had it two or three times as hard.
And they didn't have the modern clothing and the modern gear to get to the top.
And so they had canvas boots with moose hide on it that were homemade.
KID: Crampons are devices that attach to a boot with spikes that can grip onto snow and ice.
Walter Harper and his expedition attached homemade crampons to their canvas boots.
We got to look at very old crampons that are part of the Denali National Park and Preserve Museum collection.
These are made out of sheet metal.
They had points on them like this to keep them from slipping on snow and ice.
KID: These are the type of crampons that climbers use today.
They're much lighter and smaller than homemade ones from 100 years ago.
Both 100 years ago and today, safety is the most important thing for climbers to keep in mind.
You guys ever heard of a crevasse?
KID: A crevasse is a giant crack in the ice.
TUCKER: Yeah, a giant hole in the ice.
There's snow over a hole in the ice, and those holes could be a couple of hundred feet deep, and everybody ropes up to each other.
So if one person falls in, you've got a safety line, which is the rope.
If somebody goes through a crevasse, we've gotta be able to pull them out of that crevasse.
And so that's...
It's, it can be dangerous climbing on a mountain, so...
Taking care of your friends and taking care of yourself on the climb is very challenging.
But if you want to be successful, you have to do that.
DANA: You have to work as a group.
And you have to make sure the whole group makes it to the top.
Otherwise, nobody gets to go to the top.
KID: Teamwork is one of the main reasons Walter Harper and his team made it to the top of Denali in 1913.
And teamwork's still very important when climbing Denali today.
Those are just some of the differences between climbing Denali back then and climbing Denali now.
Hope you learned something and thank you for watching our video.
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