Last week, a request from a researcher to use some of my photography from Aconcagua sent me on a treasure hunt into the bowels of the internet, where I uncovered a long-forgotten murder mystery set high on the slopes of South America’s highest mountain.
The researcher was trying to get footage of Aconcagua’s east side for a documentary about an expedition that took place in 1973. It didn’t take me long to work out that they must be referring to an American expedition to climb the mountain by the Polish Glacier Route. The expedition ended in the deaths of two members and an enduring secret that has recently been reignited by the discovery of a camera.
When Argentine journalist Rafael Moran interviewed eight members of the Mazamas climbing club from Oregon at their hotel in Mendoza at the start of the expedition, he was alarmed by the apparent lack of experience and group cohesion. He had a premonition that their expedition would not go well, but he couldn’t possibly have predicted what would follow.
The standard way that most people climb Aconcagua is via the Normal Route up the Horcones Valley to base camp at Plaza de Mulas on the mountain’s west side. Probably the second most popular, and the route by which I reached the summit myself in 2010, is known as the False Polish Glacier Route. This route comes in via the Vacas and Relinchos Valleys to base camp at Plaza Argentinas on the east side. It then traverses round to the north side to join the Normal Route for summit day.
False Polish is perhaps a strange name to give to the route. There is nothing false about the route; nor does it touch the Polish Glacier, the geographical feature that gives the route its name.
One thing the Normal and False Polish Glacier routes have in common is that they are both non-technical. There is no rock climbing, or even scrambling involved. And while there are often patches of deep snow to cross depending on weather conditions, there are no ice or glacier crossings that might require technical mountaineering skills such as using an ice axe or walking roped together. One famous feature of Aconcagua is the profusion of penitentes, patches of deep snow that have melted into frozen stalagmites. These are awkward to squeeze between, but do not require climbing skills. While the phrase somewhat undermines the scale of the challenge, in a good season, an ascent by either of these routes could fairly be described as a walk up.
There is a third route on Aconcagua that isn’t nearly as popular as it should be: the true Polish Glacier Route, up a picturesque, sloping glacier that provides access to the summit from the north-eastern side. Named after the team of Polish climbers who first climbed the route in 1934, the glacier slopes relatively gently, and is rarely more than 35 to 40 degrees from head to snout. It would actually be a perfect route for guided ascents. On an 8,000m peak, operators would fix ropes all the way up it and the route would be extremely popular. In fact, this route is rarely climbed. The reason is unclear, but expedition operators sometimes advertise the route, then funnel their clients onto the easier False Polish route when they get there (this is actually what happened to me in 2010 – there was no doubt that summit success was more likely for us that way).
The Polish and False Polish share their routes for the first two camps above Plaza Argentinas. Base camp on the east side gets its name from a rock feature called Piedra Bandera (“Flag Rock”) , that overlooks base camp from its position halfway up the Polish Glacier. The stripes on the rock are supposed to resemble the Argentine flag.
Camp 3 on the Polish Glacier nestles beneath the cliffs of Aconcagua’s east ridge at the right-hand foot of the glacier. From there it traverses diagonally across to the rocks of Piedra Bandera on the left side of the glacier. Climbers usually have a Camp 4 here before traversing diagonally back across the glacier to the right to join the ridge just below the summit.
Returning to the story, by the time the team from Oregon were starting their final summit assault from Camp 3 beneath the Polish Glacier, their leader and two other members were already back in base camp suffering from altitude sickness. Their deputy leader was on his way back down, escorted by their only local guide.
The four remaining members were NASA engineer John Cooper, police officer Bill Zeller, dairy farmer Arnold McMillen, and librarian Janet Johnson, the only female member of the team. None of them had climbed together before the expedition, and none were familiar with the route. John Cooper had recorded in his diary that Zeller was by far the strongest member of the group, and had been carrying loads far in excess of other team members. He wasn’t sure what to make of Janet Johnson. He described her as “weird” and a bit of a loner who was only in it for herself.
What we know of their ascent was gleaned from the testimony and diaries of Zeller and McMillen, and from the official report of the expedition by its leader Carmie Dafoe, a lawyer who was down in base camp as the events unfolded; neither Cooper nor Johnson returned alive.
On the first day, they made slow progress and had only reached Piedra Bandera by nightfall. They had left their tents at Camp 3 and were forced to bivouac in a snow hole. By the morning, Cooper was cold and tired. He decided to quit. As it was only a short way back to Camp 3, the others left him to descend alone while they continued their ascent.
They climbed unroped and once again made slow progress. They reached the top of the glacier, but encountered waist-deep snow on the east ridge. The men were breaking trail and the summit was in sight when they looked back to find that Johnson was no longer there. They went back to look for her and called her name, but there was no answer. Finally, they came across her ice axe and found her sitting down and mumbling to herself somewhere just below. They assumed that she had altitude sickness.
By now, it was late and they were forced to spend another night out in the open. In the morning they descended again, reaching their snow hole at Piedra Bandera at 7am. By now, Johnson’s condition had improved, but she still needed assistance. They agreed that McMillen should go to get help while Zeller, the stronger of the two, should continue to descend with Johnson.
McMillen fell and slid 1,000 feet down the glacier, losing his ice axe and getting a black eye in the fall. Meanwhile, Zeller and Johnson, who were tied together, also took a tumble, breaking their glasses and sustaining cuts to their faces. At this point, Zeller also decided to continue alone. On the way back to Camp 3, he came upon Cooper’s body. Seeing no cuts and bruises (he said), he assumed that Cooper had died from exhaustion and exposure. He arrived at Camp 3 two hours after McMillen. Both men fell asleep and suffered hallucinations. Finding no sign of Johnson the following morning, they decided to descend. According to McMillen, Zeller was so confused that he didn’t know which way to go.
Back in 1973, news travelled slowly, and there were few outlets for a story about death on Aconcagua. In the United States, they were reported variously as a fall from high on the mountain, or from an avalanche. In other words, an accident of the sort that happens in high mountains.
The surviving team members refused to speak to reporters who besieged their hotel in Mendoza, and again on the airport tarmac in Buenos Aires as they boarded their flight back home. The US Consul in Buenos Aires was able speak to them twice, but got little sense of them. Dafoe, the leader, had warned him about the effects of altitude on their memory. Back home in Oregon, the Mazamas climbing club held a secret meeting behind closed doors to have an expedition debrief and produce the official account. They concluded that the two missing climbers had died from pulmonary edema.
The families of Cooper and Johnson seemed to accept that their deaths were an accident. But they did want to learn more about the circumstances and have their bodies brought off the mountain for burial.
Back in Mendoza, however, people were more sceptical. Before they left Argentina, the survivors were held for questioning, and a judge and police investigator were assigned to the case. They must have been unconvinced by the survivors’ accounts; it was labelled as an investigation into possible manslaughter.
Winter returned to the Andes, and it wasn’t until late 1973 that a team of investigators were able to return to Aconcagua to look for the bodies. They found Cooper’s frozen corpse about 150m above the tattered remains of Camp 3. There were bruises and a look of terror on his face, and there was a deep cylindrical hole in his abdomen. His ice axe and gloves were missing. One of the team thought he must have fallen onto his ice axe, but the coroner had a different opinion. He recorded the cause of death as the injuries to the skull and brain. Another of the doctors who examined him thought that the hole in his abdomen, which reached his spine, was too symmetrical to have been caused by an ice axe. He suspected an ice screw had been used.
Janet Johnson’s body was found little more than a year later, in February 1975, by three climbers who were descending the Polish Glacier. They were aware of her story and keeping an eye out. They saw a splash of red hiding in a field of penitentes to their left. It was only about 20m from the place where John Cooper had been found. They found her lying face up in a tangle of ropes. Her face had also been battered in three places, on her forehead, nose and chin. There was no sign of her ice axe. There was an incongruous rock lying on her face, but the slope was relatively gentle – not the sort of place where someone might take a tumble and die from the fall. The three climbers were shocked, and convinced that she had been murdered. They believed that the rock had been placed from elsewhere to fake a fall.
Back in Mendoza, the coroner once again recorded death by injuries to the skull and brain. This time, all of those present at the autopsy suspected foul play.
One obvious thing was missing, however (apart from several ice axes). A motive. If Janet Johnson and John Cooper were really murdered, then why? There was no mention of sexual assault, but had there been some sort of disgreement? Had Johnson been attacked by Zeller and McMillen, and Cooper killed for being a witness? The deaths were so violent that it seems far fetched. What could a climber possibly say that would anger someone so much?
For nearly half a century, the story became forgotten. In March 1976, there was a military coup and Argentina was plunged into chaos. The investigation ended abruptly, never to be reviewed.
Then in February 2020, a frozen Nikomat camera was found on the Polish Glacier. Two words stamped on its base brought the story back to public attention. The two words were “Janet Johnson”. Remarkably, technicians from a laboratory in Canada were able to develop the film. It recorded the expedition right up to the top of the Polish Glacier, where Johnson took a photo of a climber ahead of her on the rope, probably Zeller (giving the lie to the story that they climbed unroped, allowing her to go missing).
Interest in the story has been revived. A superb long-form article was published in The New York Times last year, complete with archive photos and video interviews, which forms the basis of the story outlined here. I highly recommend it if you’re intrigued to learn more. And it appears that someone in Canada will be making a documentary.
Will the truth ever be known? It seems unlikely. There are no longer any surviving members from the expedition. Zeller and McMillen lived out of the remainder of their lives free from any suspicion. If they were murderers then their taste for murder was never satisfied again.
Somewhere, however, lying on the slopes of Aconcagua, are at least three missing ice axes and perhaps an ice screw. You never know.
