A Place Among Giants: 22 Seasons at Denali Basecamp

Twenty two years of love, triumph, and tragedy on North America’s tallest mountain.

Lisa Roderick had already forged an unlikely path, from growing up on a farm in Connecticut to driving the Alaska Highway to start a new life in the 49th state. What happened next-a series of events leading her to spend more time in the Alaska Range than possibly any living human--is even more remarkable. In Alaska, she fell in love with the land, the mountains, and a mountain climber, and soon became swept up in a series of climbing adventures that culminated in her managing the basecamp on Denali, North America’s tallest mountain.

A tragic plane crash would galvanize Lisa’s commitment to protecting Denali’s aviators, and she would spend the next 22 seasons living on a massive Alaskan glacier in one of the world’s harshest mountain climates. Lisa faithfully executed her duties, providing weather observations for pilots, coordinating flights, and keeping order in the camp, while facing constant worries for the safety of her glacier pilot brother, Paul, and her mountain climber husband, Mark, as they each navigated the myriad hazards of the Alaska Range.

Lisa’s story is not just about mountains, flying, or climbing. It is a portrait of more than two decades on Denali and the climbers, pilots, and park service rescuers with whom she shared her adventures during her historic and remarkable tenure.

Lisa became the Denali Basecamp manager at 32 years old and served 22 seasons managing the camp at the foot of North America’s tallest mountain. Collectively, she has spent nearly four years of her life living on the Kahiltna Glacier, becoming a well-known and beloved fixture in the camp among the tens of thousands of climbers and sightseers that she welcomed to the glacier during her tenure. As the manager, Lisa was tasked with maintaining a glacier runway airstrip, providing vigilant weather observations for the air services bringing climbers and sightseers to the glacier, and occasionally, she assisted the National Park Service in coordinating numerous rescue operations.

In 2015, the National Park Service presented her with the Mislow-Swanson Denali Pro Award for her contributions to safety and mountain stewardship, and, like two of the famed prior basecamp managers, Frances Randall and Annie Duquette, there is a formerly unnamed mountain standing above camp that now unofficially bears her name.

Lisa has been a climber for more than twenty-five years. In Alaska, she has made ascents of the Mooses Tooth and several smaller peaks, survived a stormbound late winter attempt on the seldom-climbed Mount Russell in the western Alaska Range, and accompanied the National Park Service on a patrol to 14,000 feet on Denali, and a backcountry patrol of Denali’s lower Muldrow Glacier. She has rock climbed throughout the mountains and deserts of the American southwest, and has also trekked and climbed in many countries, including Argentina, Chile, Nepal, Costa Rica, and New Zealand. In recent years, she most prefers rock climbing in warm environments, scuba diving, and traveling to exotic locations with good food. Lisa is also a Licensed Massage Practitioner, operating a small practice in Talkeetna, Alaska, her home for most of the past twenty-seven years. She presents multimedia slide shows about her job at basecamp for large tourist groups in Alaska.