*** Reports Differ on Ptarmigan Peak Climbing Tragedy ***

Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 13:04:54 -0900
From: Bruce_Bowler@dot.state.ak.us (Bruce Bowler)
Subject: Anchorage Daily News
     
By STEVE RINEHART
Daily News reporter
The University of Alaska climbing class that tumbled from
Ptarmigan Peak in June with the loss of two students was
adequately prepared and equipped and used proper mountaineering
techniques, a university report released Friday concluded.

The university report, prepared by Deb Ajango, the head of the
Alaska Wilderness Studies program, said the 1,000-foot chain-
reaction fall was caused by "no single factor" but rather by a
combination of events and circumstances. It doesn't assign blame
on any individual action or decision.

However, a separate, independent analysis by the medical
director of the Alaska Mountain Rescue Group questioned the choice
of routes, the equipment and the methods used by the class. That
report by Dr. Ken Zafren, one of the first rescuers to reach the
disaster site in Chugach State Park, is circulating among climbers
and was obtained Friday by the Daily News.

Both reports outlined the tragedy:
Late on a sunny Sunday afternoon on June 29, not long after the
beginning mountaineering class had begun descending a snow-filled,
north-facing gully in Chugach State Park, one student slipped. He
was in the uppermost of four roped-together teams. The force of
his fall yanked his two rope-mates off their feet. They slid into
the team below, snared them in the rope, and carried them
     
The accumulation of ropes and climbers caught up the fourth
team, and the entire class pounded down the snow, over a band of
rock and across a boulder field where they piled up in a tangled,
bloody heap.

Eleven of 14 climbers were injured badly enough to be
hospitalized, and Mary Ellen Fogarty and Steve Brown were killed.
A massive air and ground rescue stabilized the injured on the
steep slope and evacuated them to Providence hospital.

In a cover letter with her report, prepared for University of
Alaska Anchorage provost Daniel Johnson, Ajango said she based her
conclusions on interviews with instructors, statements from the
students, an inspection of their gear and her own climb up the
North Couloir the week after the fall.

She said that the instructors on the climb, Ben and Deborah
Greene, were qualified and used good judgment, and that the class
was run according to the guidelines of the outdoor education
program, which Ajango oversees.

In an interview Friday night, Ben Greene said he thought the
university report was a thorough and fair review. He said it does
not pinpoint a specific cause because there was not one. The
initial slip should not have been enough to pull out the anchors;
the slope was not too steep for sliding climbers to stop
themselves.

"I am not sure I understand the elements that caused the
dominoes to fall," he said. "No single error can make this happen."

Zafren, who was in charge of the mountain medical team at the
rescue, didn't challenge the qualifications of the instructors.
But he said that a beginning class on a steep slope should have
been led by four instructors, one on each roped-together climbing
team.

In his analysis of the accident, a draft manuscript he planned
to publish in a mountaineering journal, he listed major
contributing factors to the fall.

Many of the victims wore soft leather boots, susceptible to
slipping on steep snow, he said. Their climbing technique - using
ice axes to anchor themselves to the snow, while one member of
each team progressed - was inadequate and non-standard, in his
view.

Finally, he said, the North Couloir on Ptarmigan was too
dangerous for a beginning class traveling in such a manner that
they had to "depend solely on each other for their safety."

The university report also addresses that central question in
the inquiry: Should a group of beginning climbers have attempted a
steep, potentially hazardous slope?

It says the risks were similar to those encountered on the way
up, although the students were not as fresh and a fall on the
descent might generate more force. The class as a group wanted to
go down that way. The instructors felt the class had performed
well on the way up and could manage the risks on the way down.

Greene said university climbing classes have used the Ptarmigan
route safely for years. "It is a mountaineering classic," he said.
It has risks, he said, but the class is much about identifying and
managing risk.

Ajango could not be reached to comment about the reports on Friday.

Both reports are sure to be widely discussed next week. A panel
of climbers, academics and ethicists appointed by provost Johnson
to review the university's outdoor education program is scheduled
to convene a three-day meeting on Thursday. The panel will hold a
public comment session Friday, from 3 to 5 p.m. in the UAA
Administration Building, Room 204.

Ajango, in her letter to Johnson, listed some further questions
to be taken up by the Wilderness Studies Risk Management Committee
next week. Those include: Should there be more instructors for the
number of students in a climbing class? Were the snow-anchor
techniques proper? Were the climbing teams properly placed on the
slope during the descent?

Both the Alaska State Troopers and Chugach State Park have
reviewed the accident. The troopers said there are no standards in
state criminal law dealing with climbing, but had their report
reviewed by state attorneys to see if the incident amounted to
criminal negligence. No charges were filed.

Chugach chief ranger Jerry Lewanski compiled a record of the
incident and documented the rescue. Park Superintendent Al Meiners
said he and his superiors are considering changing park
regulations to impose performance, training or other standards
when issuing permits for climbing classes and other potentially
hazardous commercial or instructional endeavors.

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