Mountain climber with no rope plunges 1,000 feet in Alaska national park, officials say

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. This doesn't seem, however, to have been free climbing

It wasn't up a rock face, but from Denali Pass - the ridge between two peaks. It is the same as the link given in reply #2 (though that was specifically about an incident 10 years ago). It was mountaineering; it looks like a relatively shallow gradient, with steep falls either side. At the detailed level, you may or may not be going over steep rocks. And people may decide they feel it's better to be able to move fast without ropes connecting members of a party (if all you do is connect the party, you're relying on the others being able to stop a sudden fall without getting pulled off themselves; if you use 'protection' with chocks and slings around features, it takes time to place it, and then for the last to remove it. It's all a trade-off).