Although Mount St. Elias had been known to native Americans for thousands of years and to Europeans since 1741 when Vitus Bering saw the peak and gave it its current name, it was not successfully climbed until 1897 by a party lead by Prince Luigi Amadeo di Savoia, Duke of the Abruzzi. This is the story of that expedition. Mount St. Elias was not climbed again for another 50 years when the advent of air support made the logistics of the climb less daunting.