In Memory of Henry Bradford Washburn Jr. (1910-2007)
SUBMITTED BY RICHARD W. MONTAGUE
When I think back on my own relationship with Henry Bradford Washburn Jr., always “Brad” to his friends, I think of many events: travelling with Brad and his wife, Barbara, in Switzerland to research tourism possibilities for Alaska (where I served as the state’s tourism director) or visiting with Brad and Barbara at their home near Boston and touring with them the magnificent Museum of Science in Boston, Brad and Barbara’s landmark achievement in the museum world. But most of all, I think of that memorable day, back in the early 1970s in Anchorage, Alaska, when Brad and Barbara asked me to join them on a special photoreconnaissance flight around Mount McKinley, the vortex of Brad’s mountaineering and exploring interest.
We took off from Anchorage International Airport on a cloudless summer day, wind still, in Brad’s chartered Lear Jet, equipped with a special photographic window port that allowed Brad to take high-resolution aerial photography through the port while he sat, comfortably, in the fuselage of the aircraft. Apart from Brad and Barbara, I was the only passenger to accompany the two Washburns on this flight over Mount McKinley.
Virtually within minutes, we were over the settlement of Talkeetna, and soon we were soaring upward, over the broad expanse of Kahiltna Glacier, turning then sharply to top Denali Pass, before turning again to fly south over the actual summit at 20,230 feet.We cleared this feature by perhaps 700 to 800 feet—very close! I will never forget the picture: Brad, in shirtsleeves, concentrated on controlling his aerial camera and gave instructions softly over the intercom to our pilot on how to bank, how to manoeuvre, and how to position the aircraft for the precisely precisely “right” spot for the best views.He was enjoying himself thoroughly. Ever Brad’s helper, Barbara sat at the window port with a long flexible hose connected to a special hot-air blower to prevent frosting of the photographic window. They had been a mountaineering team, always working together, since their summiting of Alaska’s Mount Berta in July 1940—on their wedding trip.
A strange, almost unreal expression crept across their faces as we circled, many times, over the north and south summits of Mount McKinley, separated by Denali Pass. Etched in his eyes, I could see that Brad was reliving Mount McKinley summits: his own first, via the Muldrow Glacier route in 1942, as co-leader of the 1942 U.S. Army Test Expedition. Then, as a wry smile crossed Brad’s face and he gave a nod to Barbara, I knew they were remembering his second assent, her first, in June 1947, whereby she became the first woman ever to summit Mount McKinley.He paused and gazed out the photographic port, pointing with his finger, “That’s where we were on July 10, 1951, when we came up from the West Buttress” (the route to the south summit that Brad pioneered). I felt privileged to be with them at this very special moment: what an experience!
Brad was a wonderful guy. But he also leaves behind a McKinley of achievement: establishment of the Museum of Science in Boston, arguably the world’s finest science museum; exploration literature of his own journeys in Alaska and the Yukon that will stir the hearts of future generations of climbers; and the world’s most impressive collection of Alaskan mountain photographs, so that all of us can enjoy, if even only vicariously, the thrill and grandeur of high places. Geographers and geodesists will remember him as the mountain cartographer par excellence, whose polyconic-projection, multicoloured shaded relief maps of Mount McKinley, the Grand Canyon, and Mount Everest are themselves works of art. North American mountaineering has lost a great friend.