British-Canadian St Elias 1999

This expedition was originally planned to take place in 1998, but due to the (temporary) disappearance of the man on whom they were relying to sail them in, plans had to be very considerably modified (see 98/48 in last year's Journal). After sailing from Vancouver to the head of Disenchantment Bay in a 14 metre steel ketch, they skied 40km up the Valerie and Seward Glaciers to establish a base camp at 1,650m from which to attempt the unclimbed NW Cook, 3,687m. This was achieved via its W Ridge on generally poor, but not particularly difficult, snow and rock. From the summit, in worsening weather, they traversed the 5km high-level knife-edge ridge to Mount Cook, 4,194m, descending its SE Ridge to get back to BC with some frostbite injury after an 11-day excursion.