With excellent weather continuing, they decided to save time by no longer leapfrogging loads. Instead, they hefted packs weighing up to ninety pounds and headed upward. As they climbed over the 15,885-foot high point of the buttress, they were awed by views of Denali’s 8000-foot south face next door.
On May 12, they placed their fifth camp at the edge of the Great Traleika Cirque, a huge basin below Denali’s upper east face. From there they would descend about 1500 feet and then climb back up the other side to reach a 17,200-foot pass, the door to the Harper and Muldrow glaciers and the well-known route home. As Wood looked over the pass, he felt a surge of relief — not because of the proximity of the summit but rather because of the certainty that he and his friends wouldn’t have to retreat down the long route they had just climbed.

Acclimatized by nearly a week above 15,000 feet, the four men hiked easily to the top of North America on May 15. They left their names and the date on a slip of paper in a tin can and were back at high camp by 4:30 p.m, tired but happy. Thayer’s dream of a new route on Denali had been fulfilled, and they expected to reach civilization in just four days.
Throughout the difficult climb, the team’s camaraderie had never wavered. “Not often can four people live together so intimately under such trying conditions without ever experiencing the slightest frictions or personality conflict,” Wood wrote in the American Alpine Journal afterward. Reflecting on the events that befell them the next day, he could not fault their decisions. Snow conditions along their descent route were poor, but returning down the South Buttress was unthinkable. Perhaps they were feeling rushed. It was the last day of Argus and Viereck’s thirty-day leave from their Army posts, and they would soon be AWOL. Perhaps they were overconfident because they were on their way down and Wood had climbed their proposed descent route seven years before.