North America, Canada, Yukon Territory, Mount Logan

Publication Year: 1968.

Mount Logan. This year the Arctic Institute initiated a program of high-altitude physiology as a part of its work to advance understanding of the total environment of the St. Elias Mountains. The first objective was the establishment of a research facility. Beginning in June our pilot, Philip Upton, made a series of 27 landings at 17,400 feet with our Helio Courier. Barry Bishop was in charge of operations on the mountain, and Charles Houston with several other physiologists spent time at the high-level station. Extremely bad weather prevented our doing more than establishing the physical facility. But now it is there and the scientific program will get under way next summer. The landings were the highest yet made in North America by fixed-wing aircraft. The party on the mountain, as many as ten at a time, did no climbing of the summits of Logan. An initial party established an “escape route” if air support should fail and climbed to the station site from an air-landed camp in the King Trench at 10,000 feet.

Walter A. Wood