FAIRBANKS — The National Park Service might seek reimbursement from a climber who was removed from Mount McKinley by military helicopters in an operation last week that cost tens of thousands of dollars.

The Park Service enlisted two Army helicopters from Fort Wainwright to evacuate Andrew Randolph, a 25-year-old solo climber from Pennsylvania, from the 14,200-foot camp after doctors there deemed him unfit to be on the mountain.

Randolph believes he was removed a different reason: for bringing his paragliding equipment on the mountain.

A federal regulation forbids paragliding and powerless flight from Mount McKinley, according to the Park Service. Before the climb, Randolph signed an affidavit with the park service promising not to use a paraglider on the mountain.

He brought the paraglider with him, though.

“It’s not illegal to have,” Randolph said during a phone interview from Pennsylvania.

The regulation and affidavit did not specify he couldn’t take the paraglider. He claimed he wasn’t planning to use it unless he faced a life-or-death situation and was caching it at 14,200 feet.

“Taking a paraglider up to the summit is absolutely ridiculous. That wasn’t the idea,” he said.

Randolph had a right to bring the paraglider onto the mountain, he maintained. Yet he promised park rangers on at least three occasions that he wasn’t taking it, including the moment his gear was loaded on the McKinley-bound plane in Talkeetna, said John Leonard, South District ranger for Denali National Park and Preserve.

“He swore to rangers that he didn’t have his paraglider with him. But that doesn’t have anything to do with the fact of why he was removed from the mountain,” Leonard said.

The reasons were strictly medical, according to the park service.

“He was removed from the mountain because medical professionals deemed he was a threat to himself and others,” Leonard said. “It was not a law enforcement issue.”

To justify the evacuation, doctors at the 14,200-foot camp had to certify probable cause that Randolph was mentally ill or disabled and likely to cause harm to himself and others, said Leonard.

Randolph showed up at the camp with a body temperature bordering hypothermia and was treated by camp doctors. Meanwhile, rangers found and confiscated Randolph’s paraglider. He stayed at the camp for about four days, Randolph said.

Before his condition deteriorated, rangers encouraged Randolph to descend the mountain under his own power, Leonard said. But then the climber demanded an emergency flight off the mountain, saying he lacked the gear or experience to get down, he said.

In a phone interview, Randolph said he had a broken snowshoe and didn’t trust the park service backup gear or support offered for his descent, which included traversing Kahiltna Glacier.

On July 7, he was strapped to a backboard and picked up by two Army Chinook CH 47 helicopters from Fort Wainwright, accompanied by two Denali law enforcement rangers.

Randolph has climbed four peaks of the Seven Summits, the highest mountains in each continent, he said, and never had a bad experience until now. He believes he was discriminated against because he was a solo climber.

“I don’t think this would have happened if I was with a small group,” Randolph said.

McKinley sees only about a dozen solo climbers a year. They encounter higher rates of trouble than groups, Leonard said.

“Climbing solo is not something that’s considered within the acceptable norms of climbing a glaciated peak such as Denali, because there’s no way to protect against a lot of the dangers, especially in the summer,” said Leonard.

The park service is investigating whether criminal charges or the climber’s insurance could help cover the cost, which was picked up by the Department of Defense.

Contact staff writer Molly Rettig at 459-7590.