U.S. Climbers To Try Skill On Polar Peak

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30395, 20 March 1964, Page 16

U.S. Climbers To Try Skill On Polar Peak

A team of top Unked* States and scientists has proposed an assault on tiErt highest peak of the Antarctic Washington. They are plarinfng the dinib op.MotmtVinson late this year during the South Pole’s frigid, windswept *sfaniisr.’’ t <

The unexplored Vinson Massif, 800 miles from the South Pole, is the world’s last finconquered continental “highest peak.” Although not as high as Mount Everest, Vinson rises above Antarctica’s permanent ice cap to nearly 17,000 feet and is believed to harbour dues to ancient life of the frozen continent The expedition proposes to gather scientific data on the rocky, comparatively unexplored Sentinel Range, topped by Vinson, in the Ellsworth mountains. The expedition has been endorsed by the American Al-

pine Club, which several members in the group. * If successful, the climbers will be the first from the Untied States > climb a “highest continental peak" outside North America. t Heading the team is Peter K. Schoening, a Seattle chemical company executive, who has been a member of several Himalayan climbing expeditions; Robert O. Lee, a Portland timber executive who led a Himalayan climbing group in 1961, is in Charge of logistics and scientific observations. Jack D. Wilkins, a Seattle publishing executive, is the expedition’s equipment officer and chief photographer. Both Schoening and Lee are members of the American Alpine Club and have climbed major peaks throughout the free world.

Wilkins has scaled major peaks in the western United States, Canada and Mexico. Several specialists in medicine, glaciology, meteorology, psychology and other scientific fields would be invited to join the group, Lee said. One of the group's advisers is James W. Whittaker, of Seattle, who last year became the first American to reach the top of Mount Everest.

Planning for the expedition has been under way Since May. Clothing and equipment to permit operations in summer temperature of below minus-50 degrees, and freeze-dried . and dehydrated foods for 5000-<alories-per-day diets are among supplies being assembled.

The Vinson Massif has been called the most inaccessible and forbidding major mountain area in the world.

The ice cap surrounding the giant peak has not been fully explored, although photographs have been taken from th? air. Distant observations have indicated several peaks in the immediate vicinity of the massif are of pure white marble, towering to above 10,000 feet in elevation. . The American proposal calls for establish ment of a base camp' at an elevation of about 6500 feet near a 9000-foot glacial icefall which leads to the Vinson summit plateau and the final rock buttress of the peak.

The expedition leaders say they hope to be on the mountain in December and January, 1964-65. They will begin their climb off from the United States Byrd station in Marie Byrd Land.