While at Cambridge, he developed an interest in climbing, spending a number of holidays in the Wales, Scotland and the Alps, and serving as president of the university's mountaineering club.
[4] In 1930, Wager made his first trip to eastern Greenland with the British Arctic Air Route Expedition led by Gino Watkins.
[3] Wager also made an attempt to climb Mount Forel in Schweizerland, at the time the highest known peak in the Arctic at 11,500 ft.
They reached approximately the height Norton had gained (28,200 ft) before turning back due to poor snow conditions and the lateness of the hour.
[12] In 1942 he braved the notorious Murmansk Run as part of a small reconnaissance team attempting to track down the German battleship Tirpitz.
In 1946, Wager was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society[1] for 'his important contribution to knowledge of calc-alkaline Rocks, magmatic differentiation, and the mechanics of igneous intrusion'.
He made a further expedition to Greenland in 1953 with Alex Deer, but in 1955 a heart attack put an end to his career as an active mountaineer and explorer.
His book Layered Igneous Rocks, written with his protégé Malcolm Brown, was published posthumously in 1968, and became a standard text.
Phyllis had trained as a ballet dancer, and performed at Sadlers Wells and The Old Vic; she met Wager at a Morris dancing festival.