Bates and Washburn contemplated what to do. McCarthy was about 75 miles back down the Walsh Glacier and the Chitina River. The nearest community in the Yukon looked to be Burwash Landing, about 100 miles to the northeast on the other side of Lucania. The climbers had aerial photographs of the route back to McCarthy. They had neither photos nor maps of much of the country north of Lucania. Despite that, they decided that climbing up and over Lucania and going for Burwash Landing was a better option than trekking down the heavily crevassed Walsh into a canyon at the head of the Chitina. On July 9 -- 22 days after arriving on the glacier -- the men made Lucania's summit and began their retreat for Canada. "Back at their packs,'' Roberts wrote in a 2002 article for National Geographic Adventure magazine, "they junked enough food and gear to reduce their load to 60 pounds each. Beyond a tent ... they were left with a half-gallon of white gas and 19 pounds of food, enough for only four or five days.'' They were not worried. They counted on finding a cache an expedition to nearby Mount Steele had left near Wolf Creek Glacier in 1935. "By early the next evening, they approached the grassy bench where Walter Wood had left his bounty,'' Roberts wrote. "They had daydreamed about it; already, they could taste the goodies. Cresting a rise, they saw metal cans gleaming in the sun. But something was wrong: Instead of a neatly stacked depot, they found smashed cans strewn in the grass, each gouged with holes. A bear or bears had obviously discovered the cache, biting into every can to get at the exotic stuff inside. The only intact container was a small jar of peanut butter. "They now had less than 15 pounds of food. As the men stared at the wreckage, dread seized them. And all the doubts and worries they had repressed for 25 days came rushing up." Things would only get worse as the two pushed on. They would find the glacial Donjek River a roaring, brown-water nightmare that would force them to detour miles out of their way. They'd be forced to subsist on mushrooms and squirrels. Roberts would later calculate the two hiked 156 miles. Whatever the exact distance, it was a long way. But 32 days after having landed on the Walsh Glacier, the men finally stumbled into Burwash Landing beaten, battered and thin -- but happy to be alive. Nobody paid much attention to their story -- except for the bagging of that last unclimbed summit --- until Roberts got around to writing the book with Washburn's help 65 years later.
Nepal Country Director Bob Bates gained near-legendary status within the small community of American mountaineers
Climber's exploits earned little recognition
CRAIG MEDRED
OUTDOORS
Published: October 7, 2007
Last Modified: October 7, 2007 at 05:26 AM
Hardly anyone reading this column will have heard of Bob Bates. Maybe if he'd have died young in the North he'd have gained more Alaska notoriety -- the way poor, confused Chris McCandless did after becoming the subject of the book "Into the Wild.''
Only Bates didn't die here. He came close, but he didn't die.
His exploits just across the border in Canada did become the subject of the book "Escape from Lucania: An Epic Story of Survival'' by authors David Roberts and the late Bradford Washburn. Washburn is, of course, well know in Alaska. A noted climber, photographer, cartographer -- as well as director of the Museum of Science in Boston -- Washburn was a master of self-promotion.
Bates, a Harvard classmate and climbing buddy of Washburn, was not. He did publish two books, "Five Miles High'' in 1939 and "K2: The Savage Mountain'' in 1954. Both focused on Bates' futile attempts to reach the summit of K2 in the Himalayas.
At 28,328 feet, K2 is the second-tallest mountain in the world. For a time, it was thought to be possibly taller than 29,078-foot Mount Everest.
Neither of Bates' books sold particularly well. And although Bates gained near-legendary status within the small community of American mountaineers, his name never rose to the levels of Washburn or, for that matter, McCandless -- America being the strange and fickle place it is when it comes to determining what tickles the public imagination.
I confess that when Anchorage economist Gunnar Knapp sent me an e-mail last month saying that Bates had died at the age of 96, I recognized the name but couldn't recall much of his accomplishments, other than that he'd been involved in a number of early Mount McKinley ascents.
Knapp, for his part, knew Bates first and foremost as a sophomore prep school English teacher on the East Coast.
"I was aware that he was a mountain climber,'' Knapp said. "I was completely unaware he was known for it. I had no idea he had ever been to Alaska.
"He was a trim, fit little guy with a twinkle in his eye. He was an excellent teacher.''
Only after Knapp moved to Alaska a couple decades ago and started reading about early McKinley climbs did he discover that Bates was part of a gang from the Harvard Mountaineering Club busy bagging first ascents of nearly all the major peaks of the North in the 1930s.
At 17,150 feet, Lucania was one of those peaks. Sitting far from anywhere near the southeast corner of the Yukon Territory, it had been declared "impregnable'' after a failed expedition in 1935. By the time Bates, Washburn and two companions set out for the top in 1937, Lucania was the highest unclimbed mountain left in North America.
Their bid to conquer it would start off bad and get worse.
The climbers contracted with Bush pilot Bob Reeve, destined to become one of Alaska's most famous fliers, to ferry them from Valdez to the Walsh Glacier just across the U.S. border in Canada's Kluane National Park. After days spent pinned down in Valdez by rain, Bates and Washburn finally took off on Reeve's airplane with the group's first load of gear. The plane landed and quickly sank into slush. The date was June 18, 1937.
Bates, Washburn and Reeves unloaded everything and spent five days shoveling out a runway. Reeves said he wouldn't be bringing back the rest of the climbing party or the rest of their gear and suggested the best option for the two climbers was to hike out. Then the pilot took off, barely making it away with his airplane.
Bates and Washburn contemplated what to do. McCarthy was about 75 miles back down the Walsh Glacier and the Chitina River. The nearest community in the Yukon looked to be Burwash Landing, about 100 miles to the northeast on the other side of Lucania.
The climbers had aerial photographs of the route back to McCarthy. They had neither photos nor maps of much of the country north of Lucania. Despite that, they decided that climbing up and over Lucania and going for Burwash Landing was a better option than trekking down the heavily crevassed Walsh into a canyon at the head of the Chitina.
On July 9 -- 22 days after arriving on the glacier -- the men made Lucania's summit and began their retreat for Canada.
"Back at their packs,'' Roberts wrote in a 2002 article for National Geographic Adventure magazine, "they junked enough food and gear to reduce their load to 60 pounds each. Beyond a tent ... they were left with a half-gallon of white gas and 19 pounds of food, enough for only four or five days.''
They were not worried. They counted on finding a cache an expedition to nearby Mount Steele had left near Wolf Creek Glacier in 1935.
"By early the next evening, they approached the grassy bench where Walter Wood had left his bounty,'' Roberts wrote. "They had daydreamed about it; already, they could taste the goodies. Cresting a rise, they saw metal cans gleaming in the sun. But something was wrong: Instead of a neatly stacked depot, they found smashed cans strewn in the grass, each gouged with holes. A bear or bears had obviously discovered the cache, biting into every can to get at the exotic stuff inside. The only intact container was a small jar of peanut butter.
"They now had less than 15 pounds of food. As the men stared at the wreckage, dread seized them. And all the doubts and worries they had repressed for 25 days came rushing up."
Things would only get worse as the two pushed on. They would find the glacial Donjek River a roaring, brown-water nightmare that would force them to detour miles out of their way. They'd be forced to subsist on mushrooms and squirrels. Roberts would later calculate the two hiked 156 miles.
Whatever the exact distance, it was a long way. But 32 days after having landed on the Walsh Glacier, the men finally stumbled into Burwash Landing beaten, battered and thin -- but happy to be alive. Nobody paid much attention to their story -- except for the bagging of that last unclimbed summit --- until Roberts got around to writing the book with Washburn's help 65 years later.
Some might argue it uncharacteristic for Washburn to sit on a feat like this, but no one would say that about Bates. The head of U.S. Army's Alaskan Testing Team examining cold-weather gear for use in World War II and the first director of the Peace Corps in Nepal, Bates was never one to brag about personal achievements.
Knapp said that even when he stopped to visit Bates while passing through Exeter, N.H., in the 1980s, the retired teacher, then in his 70s, "was still more of a listener than a talker.
"He was in great shape and very talkative, and so intrigued to learn I had landed in Alaska.''
Knapp wanted to ask a lot of questions about climbing in Alaska in the '30s and '40s. Instead, he ended up answering a lot of questions about what it was like to be an economist in Alaska in the '80s.
There will be a memorial service for Bob Bates Oct. 27 at Phillips Church in Exeter. Many will come. They will celebrate a rich life lived real.
Many, many more will go to see Sean Penn's rendition of the short, fruitless life of McCandless reconstructed -- as if it had some special meaning -- in the movie version of "Into the Wild.''
"It doesn't make any sense to me,'' Knapp said. "These people (like Bates) are totally more interesting.''
If you're a drinking man, or woman, remember that thought and lift a toast to the Bob Bateses of the world. Victory is living long and doing much in the wilderness. Anything less is simply defeat.
The meaning of death in a bus on the edge of a national park is only that you've failed at whatever you set out to do if, of course, you had some idea of what you were setting out after to begin with.
Find Craig Medred online at adn.com/contact/cmedred or call 257-4588.
