Fatally injured climber loved a challenge
Staff writer
Jacqueline Van Dalsem welcomed the challenges - whether they were in the classroom or on the slopes of the world's highest peaks.
So when school recessed last week and the rigors of teaching the educable retarded were over until the fall - the 47-year-old Marina Del Rey woman headed for Mount McKinley in Alaska.
Park officials said she died there Monday in an apparent freak accident witnessed by her husband and other members of the 17-member Sierra-Denali Expedition.
The group, roped together in teams of four, had just begun the climb when Mrs. Van Dalsem fell 15 feet into a crevasse at the Kahiltna Glacier's 7,700-foot level.
She was second on the expedition
"She fell into the crevasse and she was caught by the ropes," a very shaken Van Dalsem said at home Thursday. "She must have broken her neck in the fall or the sled she was pulling fell on top of her or she hit her head in the crevasse.
"We recovered her, but it was too late."
Bob Gerhard, the mountaineering ranger at McKinley, said it is not uncommon for climbers to fall into crevasses, which are deep, often snow-covered cracks in a glacier.
Usually, a mountaineer simply climbs up the ropes.
The coroner in Anchorage said an autopsy will be completed today.
Van Dalsem said his wife had been mountaineering for 11 years, and the two had scaled Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa and Mont Blanc in France, among other famous summits. This was her first attempt at McKinley, the highest mountain in North America, and the trip had been planned for five months.
An instructor with the Los Angeles Unified School District for 20 years, Mrs. Van Dalsem was a special education teacher at James A. Foshay Junior High School in the Inner City for the past six years. She was also an active member and hiking leader of the Sierra Club.
"She had planned all the food for the trip," said Edith Jacobs of Playa del Rey. a fellow teacher and Sierra Club member. "I remember she took me home one day. and she explained everything. She had it down to a science - how they were going to carry their food in sleds, how they would all be tied to ropes.
"She didn't seem to have any fear until a practice rescue a few weeks ago. Then it dawned on her she might possibly die. Until then, she didn't think in terms of the danger she might encounter."
Last Friday, Mrs. Van Dalsem attended Mrs. Jacob's retirement party. The expedition left Saturday.
"She had been all over the world and she loved It," said Bob Kindseth, the junior high's assistant principal. "She could hardly wait to go to Alaska."
"She was an incredibly patient, marvelous woman," he said. "She had the patience Of Job."
"She loved the ER children and she was a master teacher. She took them everywhere. She was the first one who decided they had to learn how to make changes and get along in life."
He said Mrs. Van Dalsem taught her students how to take a bus by having them stand on the sidewalks of central Los Angeles, making sure they had the right change and then having them take a short trip. She would have them walk to nearby museums for field trips."
"She wanted them to have the experience they would have in real life," Kindseth said. "The ER. children are really going to miss her."
"Jackie was an excellent teacher -- just outstanding," Mrs. Jacobs said. "She never gave up trying. She never gave up on the kids."
Services for Mrs. Van Dalsem, who also is survived by her parents, a brother and three sisters, will be at 6p.m. Saturday at Pierce Brothers Mortuary, 1230 Montana Ave., Santa Monica.
Her remains will be cremated and her ashes scattered over the Sierra Nevada mountains.
