Denali National Park & Preserve (AK) International Exchange Brings Nepalese Climber To Park

This is just a repost of a news release from the NPS Morning Report for June 15, 2009. But I found it interesting to see the NPS reaching out in this way. At the same time, it is Denali National Park which has always been a little forward thinking in the NPS system.

Denali National Park and Preserve’s mountaineering rangers are excited to host volunteer mountaineering ranger PhuNuru Sherpa, a member of the Mt. Everest mountain climbing community, a guide with International Mountain Guides, and an instructor with the Khumbu Climbing School in Phortse Village, Nepal. 

With sponsorship from the Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation, 29-year-old PhuNuru is participating in an educational exchange program at both Denali and Mt. Rainier National Parks during the 2009 mountaineering season.  At Denali, PhuNuru is serving on a 30-day high mountain ranger patrol on Mt. McKinley that started on June 3^rd. 

Throughout the month, PhuNuru will be working and training with NPS mountaineering rangers to further develop his technical rope rescue skills and emergency medical response, and in return will share his high altitude Himalayan expertise.  Through this mentoring relationship, NPS staff will also provide the opportunity for PhuNuru to enhance his search and rescue leadership skills and learn resource management and ‘clean climbing’ techniques to put to use in a professional capacity back home in the Himalaya.

The Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation (ALCF), based in Bozeman, Montana, founded the Khumbu Climbing School in 2004 with a mission to improve mountain safety for Nepali climbers and other high altitude workers by encouraging responsible climbing practices. Denali mountaineering ranger Brandon Latham had the opportunity to work with the ALCF in February 2009 by teaching technical rope rescue skills to the Nepali instructors at the Khumbu Climbing School in Phortse.  Latham will serve as the lead NPS ranger on PhuNuru’s Mt. McKinley patrol. 

In early July, PhuNuru Sherpa will head south to continue his educational exchange, joining the mountaineering ranger team at Mt. Rainier National Park and Preserve.
[Submitted by Maureen McLaughlin, Public Affairs Specialist]

International Mountain Guides has a permit to guide climbers at Mt. Rainier National Park and Preserve.