RFK Climbs Mt. Kennedy

Mar. 23, 1965 - Senator Robert F. Kennedy and two climbers of Mount Everest were last observed from the air today about two-thirds the distance between their base camp on Mount Kennedy and No. 2 camp at 11,500 feet.

The Senator had been scheduled to reach No. 2 camp late this afternoon and, weather permitting, to strike out from there to the summit of Mount Kennedy tomorrow. The 13,900-foot Mount Kennedy, in Yukon, Canada, is the highest unclimbed mountain in North America.

Kennedy was described as anxious to start and in good humor. A member of the expedition quoted him as saying, “The preparations for the climb look like they will be worse than the climb.”

The team is led by James Whittaker of Seattle, who in 1963 was the first American to climb Mount Everest.

Kennedy is the No. 2 man on the rope. The third man is Barry Prather of Tacoma, who also took part in the American expedition on Mount Everest in 1963.

The Senator’s climb is relatively slow because the snow is soft and he is an inexperienced climber, expedition members said.

Behind the Senator’s team, but climbing separately, are James Craig, a Vancouver lawyer who climbs as a hobby, and William Allard, the official photographer for the National Geographic Society for this expedition.

When the team led by Whittaker reaches the summit, Kennedy, it is planned, will be pushed to the lead so that he can literally be the first man to reach the top. He plans to plant a standard he is carrying on the summit, but he has refused to describe it.

For most of today, the expedition’s communications with the rest of the Yukon Territory were entirely cut off. Yesterday, the radio transmitter at Mount Kennedy was broken and was flown for repairs to Whitehorse, 140 miles east-northeast of the mountain. 

The climb is considered strenuous but not especially dangerous. However, now that the weather is warming, there is an ever-present threat of sliding snow.

Support this project at patreon.com/realtime1960s