Back in 1937, mountaineers Bradford Washburn and Robert Bates went on an expedition in the Yukon wilderness, with the ambition of climbing up Mount Lucania. A month of bad weather led to extremely slushy conditions, and the expansion of vast crevices around the Walsh glacier, which was the starting point of the climb. With the ground not stable enough for a plane to touch down and rescue them, the crew had to hike one hundred miles to reach civilization. Along the way, they dumped gear that became too heavy to carry.
In August, Teton Gravity Research assembled a team to find their lost gear. Some of the members of the seven-person crew consisted of Griffin Post, Jeremy Jones, and Robin Vangyn. Their goal was to find a cache, which contained three cameras from eighty-five years ago. They were found twelve miles from their original location due to glacial movement over the past eighty-five years. According to the New York Times, the discovered equipment included mountaineering equipment, the Fairchild F-8 aeriel shutter camera, two motion picture cameras, a DeVry “Lunchbox” camera model, and a Bell & Howell Eyemo 71 camera.
Parks Canada is currently working to see if the camera film can be recovered. The expedition also helped discover thirty years of glacial movement data for glaciologists to analyze. This looks like an incredible expedition, and I look forward to TGR’s planned film about this wild journey to rediscover history. You can read Griffin Post’s interview with Teton Gravity Research on the expedition here.
Image Credits: Leslie Hittmeier(Featured and header image), Tyler Ravelle, Teton Gravity Research
