Denali National Park, AK – Finnish big mountain skier and mountaineer Ikka Uusitalo died on Wednesday after he tumbled 2,000 feet while skiing the Orient Express route on 20,320-foot Mount McKinley in Alaska, North America’s tallest peak.

Uusitalo, 36, of Oulu, Finland, was a member of a four-person Finnish team skiing and snowboarding down the 40- to 45-degree slope with two teammates when he fell from an elevation of 17,800 feet and was unable to self-arrest. Uusitalo tumbled through snow, ice, and rocks, coming to a stop in a crevasse at 15,850 feet.

While one of his teammates continued down to the National Park Service (NPS) ranger camp at 14,200 feet for rescue assistance, Uusitalo’s other teammate rappelled into the crevasse with the help of a nearby team. They determined that Uusitalo was likely deceased.

An NPS response team arrived on scene approximately one hour later, and Ranger Tucker Chenoweth was lowered 60 feet into the crevasse by his team of three volunteer rangers. After confirming that Uusitalo was deceased, the NPS patrol members hauled both Chenoweth and the victim out to the glacier surface. Soon after, Uusitalo’s body was evacuated via a long line operation by the park’s A-Star B3 helicopter to the Kahiltna Basecamp, then on to Talkeetna.

This accident is the second fatal fall on Mt. McKinley this climbing season after German climber Steffen Machulka, 49, fell 1,000 feet on May 18 while trying to recover a backpack that had started to slide downhill.  Since 1972, 16 fatalities have occurred during descents of the Orient Express, but park records indicate that none of those other fatalities involved skiing the route.