A look at the Mendenhall Towers outside Juneau. Travis Nep Smith/Flickr.
Tragedy has struck the mountaineering world: According to reports by the Anchorage Daily News and Outside, world-class alpinists Marc-Andre Leclerc and George "Ryan" Johnson are presumed to have died earlier this week after completing what appears to be a never-before-climbed route up the north face of the Mendenhall Towers, located just north of Juneau, Alaska.
According to the Anchorage Daily News, on Monday, March 5, the 34-year-old Johnson, and 25-year-old Leclerc reached the top of their route. Leclerc shared an Instagram photo from the peak.
The duo were supposed to hike out of the Juneau Icefield via the West Mendenhall Glacier Trail no later than Wednesday evening, according to Outside. When they didn’t return, friends and family notified search and rescue teams, but storms prevented search and rescue from accessing the area until Tuesday of this week.
Per the Anchorage Daily News, once search and rescue got a look at the tower they saw an anchor rope at the top of an ice chute on one of the towers and two climbing ropes in a crevasse midway down the tower. The ropes matched the description of Johnson and Leclerc's gear.
"Everything tells us they are down in that crevasse and they are presumed deceased," Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters told the Daily News. "We do know they ascended, took pictures at the top. … We know they hiked a ridge over to the ice chute near the fourth tower."
Per the report from the Anchorage Daily News, at the summit, Leclerc called his father and a close friend before attempting the descent. Due to avalanche danger in the area, recovery efforts for the bodies of the two climbers will have to be suspended until summer.
Leclerc was a rising star in the world of climbing. A report by Rock and Ice called his 2015 solo ascent of the "Corkscrew" line on Cerro Torre in Patagonia "by far the hardest route ever soloed on Cerro Torre.”
"Sadly we have lost 2 really great climber(s)," Sage Leclerc, the father of Marc-Andre Leclerc, wrote in a public Facebook post. "And I lost a son I am very proud of."
About The Author
stash member Robert Pursell
Connecticut journalism transplant who enjoys telling stories, drinking beer and skiing, though not necessarily in that order. I have the annoying habit of petting other people's dogs without asking.