July 26, 1937 – “Mount Luciana in the Yukon territory – hitherto the highest unscaled peak in North America – had been conquered today by two American collegians. Mount Luciana is 17,500 feet in height.

The two men – Bradford Washburn of the Harvard Institute Geographical Exploration, who is called America’s foremost young explorer, and Robert Bates, Philadelphia, came to Valdez after completing the trip to claim their record.

The two men climbed Mt. Luciana July 9, they said, starting from a base established by airplane at an altitude of 8,500 feet, the highest freight landing ever made in the Arctic or Antarctic.

Washburn and Bates, forsaking the use of oxygen masks to lighten their load and living on only a half-pound of dry food per day for two weeks, fought their way upward over the badly crevassed ice. ‘The weather was wretched all the time,’ Washburn said, ‘except during the highest climbing, when we had perfect conditions. The temperature was below zero every night at camps above 12,000 feet and reached 14 degrees below the night before we started the actual ascent.’

The two men were roped together all the time they were climbing. Washburn said they fell into numerous small crevasses, but neither suffered any injuries.

The men also scaled Mt. Steele, which is 16,000 feet.

Washburn will start a month’s aerial photography project soon, taking pictures of the entire Mt. Luciana territory.”

(The San Bernardino Daily Sun – San Bernardino, California)