Instructors Blamed

Climbing deaths

A panel of mountaineering experts blamed mismanagement by the University of Alaska outdoor program and poor judgment by two instructors for a disastrous fall on Alaska’s Ptarmigan Peak that killed two and injured 12.

Two climbers died June 29 when four teams of climbers roped together fell, then slid 1,000 feet in a tangle of ropes down a snowy gully. The 10 students and two instructors were injured. The students were in an introductory class.

The university hired the panel of experts. The report found that the accident site, North Couloir of Ptarmigan Peak, is too dangerous for beginning climbers; that some of the equipment used by the students was inadequate; and that instructors Deb and Ben Greene had the class use an untested and unsafe rope-anchoring technique to descend the snow gully.

Ben Greene called the report “very harsh,” but did not dispute it.

Victims or their families are considering lawsuits.

The panel’s report affirms what many experienced local climbers said in the days following the accident, but what no official accident report said.

Jed Williamson, a nationally recognized expert on mountaineering accidents and the president of a small Vermont college, was hired to lead the panel. He chose two experienced mountaineers and educators to help: Daryl Miller, a Denali National Park and Preserve mountaineering ranger, and Jim Ratz, a former executive director of the National Outdoor Leadership School, based in Lander, Wyo. , DataTimes