Roadtrippin’ 2024: Mountain Climbers Memorial
TALKEETNA, Alaska (KTUU) - As the highest peak in North America, Denali draws in around 1,000 mountaineers a year who seek the chance to reach its summit. But the opportunity doesn’t come without risk, as the mountain’s unforgiving terrain all too often claims the lives of those who attempt to reach its peak.
Nestled in a quiet wooded area that makes up Talkeetna’s Cemetery is a tribute to those lost known as the Mountain Climbers’ Memorial.
Brian Okonek and his wife Dianne have been two of its caretakers for three decades and helped build the wooden kiosk that houses the names of those the mountain took. Mounted to the three walls of the kiosk are metal plaques with names etched under each season. Brian said the kiosk allows the city of Talkeetna — the base town before climbers head to base camp — to remember everyone who never made it back down.
“It’s a small cemetery and there wasn’t room for everybody,” Brian said. “These make room and unfortunately we have to keep adding [to it].”
Brian, a mountaineer himself, recently hung a new granite sign on the kiosk — a donation from a family member of one of those lives lost who visited the memorial and felt compelled to contribute. Helping him mount the sign were two climbers who recently summitted Denali for the first time, including Jelle Veyt from Belgium.
“[It’s] a lot of people, like, a lot of international people — and at least there’s a place people can go to see about the history of the mountain,” Veyt said. “It’s not just a mountain, it’s a whole culture. That’s the beautiful thing about it.”
Veyt felt the memorial was a touching tribute to all the climbers that came before him.
The memorial not only acts as a place for loved ones to visit and find peace, but also serves as a final resting ground for those who were never recovered.
“Some of these people ... they don’t have a body,” Brian said. “You know, somebody disappears in an avalanche or something and they’re unable to recover them — some people fear they just don’t know where they are and so this is really the only thing they have.”
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