Imperial College Alaska

The Wrangell-St Elias National Park still offers unclimbed peaks between 3000m and 4000m accessible from the Fraser and Baldwin Glaciers, so was the area chosen by four students from Imperial College to explore on foot and on ski. They discovered that the rock was generally poor quality, so as far as possible they chose to climb snow/ice lines, succeeding on 14 independent peaks, of which 6 were thought to be first ascents. Unfortunately while descending from one of the peaks, the leader slipped, landing on an ice screw attached to her harness, creating two serious lacerations to her upper thigh. Although not life threatening, they seriously restricted her future mobility, so she was evacuated to Anchorage and then back to UK.