A most hostile mountain

by Jonathan Waterman

A century ago, Alaska's forbidding Mount St. Elias, the second-highest peak in the United States, was summited for the first time, not by American pioneers, but by a team led by an Italian nobleman, Luigi of Savoy, duke of Abruzzi. Sailing north from Seattle in turbulent waters, the duke and his team disembarked along the Alaskan coast and worked their way on foot across the glistening and breathtaking Malaspina Glacier, hauling thousands of pounds of equipment to the base of the great mountain, which they ultimately surmounted after a grueling and perilous climb. Now acclaimed author Jonathan Waterman adds the ways of the mariner to his considerable mountaineering experience to retrace the duke's historic land-sea expedition.