Mount Kennedy

Mount Kennedy
Mt. Kennedy (left) from the air to the north, with the summits of Mts. Hubbard and Alverstone showing.
Highest point
Elevation	4,250-4,300 metres (~14,000 feet)
Prominence
Coordinates
Geography
Mount Kennedy Yukon, Canada
Parent range	Saint Elias Mountains
Topo map	NTS 115B/07
Climbing
First ascent	1965
Easiest route	glacier/snow/ice climb

Mount Kennedy is a peak in the Saint Elias Mountains within Kluane National Park, in Yukon, Canada. Its 4250-m to 4300-m (14000-foot) summit lies within 10 km of the Alaska Panhandle. Dusty Glacier lies against it to the north.

After the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy (JFK), it was the highest peak in North America that had not yet been climbed, and it was named in his honour.

Mt. Kennedy from the Lowell Glacier to the north.

Mt. Kennedy from the south.

First ascent

Its first ascent was in 1965 by JFK's brother Robert F. Kennedy, with a party of experienced mountaineers sponsored by the National Geographic Society and led by Jim Whittaker. Upon reaching the peak of the summit, Kennedy left some of his brother's PT-boat tie clips, a copy of his brother's Inaugural Presidential Address, and a John F. Kennedy medallion. This route from the Cathedral Glacier to the south is now considered a routine climb for experienced glacier travelers, having little technical difficulties other than navigation of extensive crevasse fields and avoidance of avalanches. Since then, other routes have been completed, including the highly technical North Buttress, first climbed in 1968 using siege tactics (placing fixed ropes and returning to a base camp), and finally in 2001 in purely alpine style (continuous ascent from bottom to summit with no fixed ropes).

Climbers in the first ascent party included:

• Jim Whittaker (1929-)
• Robert F. Kennedy (1925-1968)
• George R. Senner (1922–2003)
• Dee Molenaar (1918-)
• Bill Prater (1926-2010)
• Barry Prather (1940-1987)