China News Service, May 25 — According to foreign media reports, the U.S. National Park Service said on the 24th that a Finnish mountaineering enthusiast died in a skiing accident on a slope of Mount McKinley in Alaska.
The 36-year-old Finn, Ilkka Uusitalo, fell off a cliff on the 23rd at an altitude of 17,800 feet (approximately 5,425 meters). His body collided with snow and rocks before coming to rest in a crevasse 60 feet deep.
One of Uusitalo’s companions, using a rope to secure himself, entered the crevasse and found that he was likely dead.
The U.S. National Park Service said that U.S. Army Rangers located Uusitalo’s body, extracted it from the crevasse, and transported it out of the mountain area by helicopter.
Officials said the weather was good at the time of the accident, but the high-altitude crash site still had snow that had not yet begun to soften.