Bradford Washburn (1910 – 2007)

Brad Washburn mapped and explored the St. Elias Mountains in 1935. He was an experienced mountaineer who climbed in Yukon, Alaska, and on Mount Everest. He spoke at the Kluane Mountain Festival in 1997 where he received the Commissioner’s Award for his accomplishments. In June 1937, Washburn and Bob Bates flew from Valdez, Alaska to climb Mount Lucania. They planned to set up camp on the glacier and wait for two more friends to be flown in. The pilot landed at 8,500 feet in waist deep slush and determined that he could land there again with other climbers and supplies. Washburn and Bates had to walk out and decided to climb Lucania, and then Mount Steele, to be in position to walk about 80km to Burwash Landing. They took little food, thinking there was an old cache at a Donjek River base camp, but found only a can of peanut butter. They were soaked trying to cross the Donjek. A group of hunting guides found them warming up and eating a lunch of found mushrooms about eight kilometres from Burwash.¹⁾

Washburn and Bates left a cache of cameras and supplies on Walsh Glacier in what is now Kluane National Park. The cache was located in 2022 by members of an expedition organized by the media company Teton Gravity Research and led by professional skier and mountaineer Griffin Post.²⁾