Tumble Kills Student Climbers

Members of a mountain-climbing class for beginners slipped in the snow, tumbled into their fellow students and dragged all of them 1,000 feet down a mountainside strewn with rocks. Two people were killed and 12 injured.

The accident took place Sunday evening as students in the Mountaineering I class at the University of Alaska-Anchorage made their way down from the summit of 5,000-foot Ptarmigan Peak while roped together in groups of twos and threes for safety.

One team slipped and swept the others down the 60-degree slope to a field of boulders.

Those killed were students Mary E. Fogarty, 40, of Anchorage and Steven M. Brown, 23, who had recently moved to Anchorage from Royal Oak, Mich.