Harvard Climbers Survive Winds, Attain Logan Peak

Climbing snowy slopes and fighting 90 k. wind gusts, two members of the Harvard Mountaineering Club last summer became the third party ever to reach the east peak of Mount Logan, during an expedition described last night by Boyd N. Everett, Jr. '56.

Describing the successful ascent of Albert W. Nickerson '62 and Leif-Norman Patterson, a graduate student at M.I.T., Everett said that "the work was physically and mentally straining, but no one ever complained about the scenery." Located in the Yukon, Mount Logan, almost 20,000 feet high, is the second highest mountain in North America.

"You can't forget your camp being wiped out by a snowslide," Everett said of the one threat of serious danger on the trip. Caught in one of the tents suddenly buried under six feet of snow, Edward C. Carman '63 admitted that he was "really worried" until he heard his companions "crunching" above him. Within a few minutes they dug him out.

The five members of the Harvard Mount Logan Expedition spent 23 days on the mountain, 12 of them above 14,000 feet.

During storms the party was forced to dig snow caves into the sides of the slope. Though the icy roofs dropped several inches daily, they rarely collapse. To avoid snow slides caused by melting, much of the climbing was done after sunset.