After being abandoned in the ice of a Yukon glacier in 1937, Bradford Washburn’s cameras and equipment were discovered after 85 years, according to Canadian officials.
In addition to being a mountaineer, Washburn was a photographer, a geographer, and the founding director of the Boston Science Museum in Massachusetts.
Last spring, three athletes “embarked on a mission like no other: to find an incredible piece of history,” Parks Canada said in a Facebook post this week.
Bradford Washburn had embarked on an expedition in 1937 to try the ascent of Mount Lucania
The team put together by extreme sports video makers Teton Gravity Research traveled to Kluane Park, in the Yukon Territory, with the mission of finding the long-lost cache of cameras and other equipment.
With three other mountaineers, Washburn had embarked on an expedition in 1937 to try the ascent of Mount Lucania, the third-highest peak in Canada at 5,226 meters (17,145 feet). It was the highest peak ever scaled in North America at the time.
When faced with harsh conditions on the descent, Washburn and fellow American mountaineer Robert Bates had to reduce their equipment to the bare minimum, leaving behind cameras and climbing equipment that would one day become treasures found.
Washburn died in 2007 at age 96
“Buried in ice since 1937, this cache contained three historic cameras with photos of what these mountains looked like 85 years ago,” Teton Gravity Research said on Facebook.
Washburn died in 2007 at age 96.