Mount St. Elias Attempt and Climbs in the Tombstone Mountains. My three brothers, Herbert, Wolfgang, Bernhard, and I in the summer of 1981 were back in the St. Elias Mountains. We had as our goal the unclimbed northwest ridge of Mount St. Elias. This is the northern extension of the great northwest shoulder, between Everett’s route on the left and the 1913 Boundary Survey route, finally climbed by Japanese in 1978. It may clearly be seen diagonaling up from the left in the photo opposite page 359 of A.A.J., 1942. This begins on the Columbia Glacier and ends on the northwest shoulder, where it meets Everett’s 1965 route. After five days of bad weather, on June 28 we flew to Columbus Glacier. The next day Herbert and Wolfgang established camp at 10,000 feet on the ridge and descended. It stormed for the next three days and over three feet of snow fell. On July 4 we tried to get to our camp. After we had climbed the first 1000-foot-high steep slope, the whole of it avalanched, 650-feet-across and 3-feet-deep. All four of us lay buried. Luckily Wolfgang could free himself and dug us each out in turn. By luck, we were roped and he found us quickly. I was already unconscious by the time I was dug out. On July 6 Wolfgang and Bernhard were climbing up to Camp I to retrieve equipment. At 9250 feet they released another avalanche. Luckily they were on a knife-edge and could jump onto the other side of the ridge, where the snow held. They dug the camp out and descended to Base Camp. It was obvious that under such conditions the climb was impossible. On July 8 we climbed by its west ridge a high peak, west of Windy Peak, from a camp west of the summit. Possibly it was a first ascent. [Probably Mount Huxley, 12,560 feet.—Editor.] We flew out to Kluane Lake on July 10. We then made the following ascents in the Tombstone Mountains: Candlestick (1890 meters, 6200 feet; west of Badilia) via west ridge by Wolfgang and me on July 18, new route and second ascent of mountain; Mount Mordith (2165 meters, 7103 feet) via east face and south ridge by Wolfgang and me on July 22, second ascent; Five Finger Peak (1920 meters, 6300 feet; between Candlestick and Badilia) via south face by Herbert and Bernhard on July 22, first ascent; Sleeping Indian (2000 meters, 6562 feet; south of Crematorium) by Wolfgang and me on July 24. We also climbed five less significant peaks in this group.

Richard Feichtner, Österreichischer Alpenverein