Five Mountaineering Club Member Endure Storms on Canadian Climb

As most undergraduates relaxed in warm, sunny climes this summer, a group from the Harvard Mountaineering Club spent 23 days climbing Mt. Logan in the Canadian Yukon amid one of the area's worst storms. The five-member expedition was trapped in 60mile-an-hour blowing snow and sub-zero temperatures but escaped with only a minor case of frostbite to one of the climbers.

Albert Nickerson '62, involved in other eventful mountaineering adventures in past vacations from Harvard, was flown from base camp after the descent with minor frostbites. Unscathed were Edward Carmen '63, Leif-Norman Patterson, an MIT graduate student, and Walter Gove, a University of Washington graduate student.

Mt. Logan, at 19,850 feet the second highest peak in North America, is part of the St. Elias Range in the Northwest corner of the Canadian Yukon. The group set out to conquer two of the mountain's three peaks--the East Peak and the main central summit.

The students took two weeks and 700 feet of fixed rope to lift their 800 pounds of food and gear to the first ridge, over a 600-foot 60-degree icy slope. After that task was completed the first snow and wind came, preventing further movement the next day. By the fourth day the storm worsened and the group found its tent ripped badly by the wind. Thereafter they used snow caves on their way--first to 15,500 feet and then 17,000 feet.

Following a bad storm in the evening, Nickerson and Patterson started for the summit on July 9, as the other three were to wait for a few hours before their ascent. A storm blew up, the trio was left below, and Nickerson and Patterson were caught near the summit. They made their way later through 50-mile-an-hour winds (at -5 or -10 degrees) with minimum visibility.

The group--all five together again--held fast for the next two days in biting cold and abandoned plans for reaching the summit. The group waited for a clear day, July 12, and descended to the relative warmth of the glacier (20 degrees the first night. One local report called the storm the worst in 25 years at Logan.

This summer the Harvard Mountaineers also had a climbing camp of 21 people in the Mt. Washington region of British Columbia.