Reports of a crazy climber on Mount McKinley in late June moved up the mountain faster than the man himself, but National Park Service rangers at the 14,200-foot camp weren't quite sure what to think. North America's highest peak every year attracts more than a few people who might be considered, for lack of better words, "a little different."

This one -- whom the Park Service hasn't named because he was flown off the mountain to undergo a psychiatric exam in Fairbanks on July 7 -- caught the attention of many early, in large part because he was insistent on a plan to paraglide off the 20,320-foot summit. Park service officials in Talkeetna warned him that is a no-no.

Both rangers and an ex-ranger said the crazy guy didn't seem to take the warning seriously.

"He was very, very intense," said Daryl Miller, the retired and highly respected one-time chief climbing ranger for Denali National Park and Preserve, "I actually met the guy" in Talkeetna. New chief climbing ranger John Leonard at the time asked for advice from his predecessor.

"John said, 'What am I going to do with him?'," Miller remembered. Miller gave the easy answer for a guy no longer in the job: "He's your problem."

Leonard scrutinized the 25-year-old Pennsylvania climber's resume, decided the man had enough experience that there really were no legal grounds to keep him off the mountain, warned the man not to take his paraglider up the West Buttress, and then let him fly off to McKinley base camp on the Kahiltna Glacier.

The hope was that would be the end of it. A lot of loners intent on climbing McKinley fly to Kahiltna at 7,000 feet, get a look at the size of what awaits them above, camp out for a few days at base camp, talk to weather-beaten climbers coming down the mountain, and then fly home. Not this one. He started up the Kahiltna. Ranger Dave Weber higher up the mountain started getting reports almost immediately.

"People were asking about him," Weber said. "They checked in with us out of concern."

The climber didn't seem very alert to the crevasse dangers of glacier travel, and he lacked a tent, which complicates camping on the glacier. Camping without a tent requires construction of some sort of snow shelter, and any sort of construction takes time that could be spent melting snow for water, a task most easily done out of the weather in the vestibule of a quickly pitched shelter. Climbers who fail to religiously melt snow to make water to drink constantly soon dehydrate, which makes them susceptible to both frostbite and hypothermia.

Quite a few climbers, Weber said, noted the crazy guy's behavior on the mountain and wondered aloud to rangers if the man was taking care of himself. This sort of monitoring is normal on McKinley's busy West Buttress route, which in May and June attracts hundreds of climbers, from rank amateurs with guides to highly seasoned mountaineers acclimating with a trip to high camp at 17,200 feet before attempting more difficult routes. Between those two extremes are climbers of all abilities. Some know much about how the dangers of glacier travel and how quickly Alaska Range weather can turn deadly, and some know almost nothing. The more capable among them tend to look out for the least capable.

Rangers worry most about the relatively inexperienced climbers traveling alone. Soloists are more vulnerable in storms, and the Kahiltna has a fair number of crevasses covered by snow bridges that may, or may not, support a climber's weight. Most climbers travel roped on the glaciers for safety. Soloists will often ask to tie in with others as a precaution when on the trail along the glacier, but there are always a few who throw caution to the wind.

The climber in question, Weber said, "didn't try to tie into anyone," although he did ask some other climbers to help him haul his gear up the mountain. That combination of actions is enough to make anyone familiar with travel on the West Buttress scratch their head. Weber decided that if the climber made it to the 14,200-foot camp -- there was still hope the man might turn around and go home -- someone best check on him.