Yukon, St. Elias Range, Border Peak of Mt. Vancouver. The 10-man Japanese party was flown to the Seward Glacier 28 May to attempt a new route, the SW Ridge, on the Border Peak of Mt. Vancouver, 15,700. A steep snow slope was utilized to reach a col on this ridge at 10,000 where their highcamp was placed and from which camp Kimura and Shibata reached the summit 10 June. On that day Kawata, Mizuta, Shimizu, and Ueda remained in the highcamp while Nubuo Kuwahara (36), Toshiaki Miyamoto (25), Yoshikazu Nishikawa (27), and Yasuhiro Sawada (25) were relaying loads up from a lower camp. Nishikawa, leading the first rope of this latter group, was only 160 vertical feet below the col on a 30° slope when a section of the slope 490 feet wide, 650 feet long and about 1 foot thick broke away even with him. As the first three climbers were swept away, Kuwahara plunged his ice axe into the deep snow. This hasty belay held, but the nylon rope connecting him to Sawada (only 6 mm. nylon) broke. (The second rope). The avalanche went only 150 feet below Kuwahara before cascading over a 200 foot vertical drop. All three were killed. The bodies of Nishikawa and Miyamoto were recovered.

Source: Vin Hoeman after interviewing Shoichi Kimura and corresponding with Nubuo Kuwahara; Mel Marcus.

Analysis: The willingness to take risks to accomplish an objective are sometimes in direct proportion to the distance climbers have come and the amount of preparation they have made for a climb. However, there is also the element of poor judgment due to inexperience with mountains the size of Vancouver, or with glacial conditions in general. Although they had used this slope previously, it was undeniably steep enough to avalanche under some conditions.