Mountaineering in Alaska rarely makes the news, and when it does, it typically involves Mount McKinley, which sees deaths, falls and rescues nearly every year. Denali National Park dutifully reports the numbers of climbers and the percent that reach the summit.
But for climbers seeking new challenges, Alaska's real climbing action often takes place far from McKinley's popular West Buttress route, which sees more than 1,000 climbers a year. Most Alaska mountains are considerably lower than McKinley, though the height of a mountain is a poor marker of its difficulty. Rather, the steepness of the terrain often makes the difference between deceptively easy and daunting.
The sheer faces of many Alaska peaks, combined with their giant relief, means that mountains with relatively low summits often provide walls steep enough to challenge the best climbers in the world.
Such was the case for British alpinist Peter Graham, when he and partner Ben Silvestre made the first ascent of the east face of Jezebel, a 9,620-foot peak in the Revelations Mountains, a group of peaks at the west end of the Alaska Range.
"What Ben was trying to climb looked like it might not be possible," Graham said. "For us anyway. But somehow he kept making progress. He would hack away for what seemed like an age, and just when I thought he was going to give up, he'd make another move."
Graham and Silvestre's ascent was the third major new route known to have been climbed in Alaska this year, coming after two new routes climbed in the third week of March.
Jason Stuckey and Chad Diesinger of Fairbanks, together with Portland climber John Frieh, established a giant new route on the northeast aspect of Mount Dickey in the Ruth Gorge near Mount McKinley.
And Anchorage climbers Clint Helander and John Giraldo made the first ascent of the final unclimbed 9,000-foot peak in the Revelations, the westernmost mountains in the Alaska Range. The duo climbed a route on the southwest face of a mountain named only for its elevation, Peak 9304. They named the mountain the Obelisk and their route Emotional Atrophy. For Helander, it was his eighth new route and sixth first ascent in the Revelations.
A defining challenge
The complexity of mountain terrain often means that one peak can have routes with an array of difficulty, both gentle "walk-up" routes and extremely difficult paths. For this reason, the route to the summit often matters as much or more than the summit itself.
Indeed, although McKinley has several routes considered technically easy, it has others with huge, steep walls regarded as some of the most difficult in the world.
Climbing new routes is a defining challenge for many climbers. And though unclimbed summits are becoming increasingly rare, the size and complexity of Alaska's peaks means that options for new routes remain abundant. Every year climbers travel from all over the world to test themselves against Alaska's giant, frozen monsters.
As the 2015 climbing season enters high gear, here are some of the new routes climbed in Alaska in 2014. Few Alaska peaks require special permission to climb -- climbers simply show up and climb. The annual American Alpine Journal (AAJ) is traditionally where first ascents in North America are documented by those who report them. But more immediately, climbers often tell friends or relay the information to one of several climbing magazines that often post stories of recent first ascents on the web. It is from these sources that news of many of these climbs was gathered.
Most impressive new route?
Arguably the most impressive new route of the season was climbed on Mount Johnson, a daunting peak that forms part of the famous Ruth Gorge. The 4,000-foot giant north face of the 8,400-foot peak had never been climbed until Coloradoans Kevin Cooper and Ryan Jennings arrived in early May.
"Cooper's and Jennings' ascent was surely one of the boldest and most visionary accomplishments in this area's long and storied climbing history," National Park Service climbing ranger Mark Westman wrote in his summary of the park's 2014 climbing season. Westman is considered an authority on Central Alaska Range climbs, having studied the peaks and climbed extensively in the area.
The route raised eyebrows not just for the impressiveness of the line and technical difficulty, but for the danger involved. The pair climbed thin, insecure snow and ice, finding just five anchors in 2,000 feet of climbing on the 4,000-foot route and ascending 700 feet without any solid anchors at all.
The two men climbed in rising temperatures, triggering a race against melting ice.
Several of the ephemeral thin-ice pitches might not have been climbable one day later. Cooper and Jennings bivouacked twice on the face, once about halfway up and a second time just below the east ridge, near the summit. Up and down, they spent 81 hours on the route.
Early-season ascents in the Revelations
The Revelations are a group of mountains in the far west end of the Alaska Range. Some of Alaska's most remote peaks, they've been largely overlooked by climbers until recently. But Helander has led a flurry of recent visits.
In late March, four French climbers pioneered two new routes, including the first ascent of 8,572-foot Pyramid Peak and another unnamed summit. They named their two routes the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Iliad was a straightforward ice climb requiring 20 hours roundtrip, while the Odyssey was a long and complex route requiring four days before the summit of Pyramid Peak was reached.
A few weeks later, three Canadians climbed three new routes, including one to the summit of a mountain named The Angel (9,265 feet) -- the fourth known time that peak has been reached. They also made the first ascent of Dyke Peak (7,800 feet) via a steep ice climb and climbed a new route on Hydra Peak (7,800 feet).
Helander returned to the Revelations with Seattle-based partner Graham Zimmerman. The pair climbed the 4,000-foot west face of Titanic Peak in less than 24 hours, the first ascent of that face and the second ascent of the peak. The two had plans for more climbs, but Zimmerman badly twisted his knee in a crevasse fall while skiing on the glacier, ending their expedition.
New route in the Kichatna Mountains
"If you were God, and you were making mountains, you'd make the Kichatnas," claims Fairbanks climber Jeff Benowitz. Though better known and more fully explored than the nearby Revelations, the Kichatnas see relatively few visits from climbers despite being famous for enormous granite mountains, making them among the hardest summits to attain in the state. This remote part of the Alaska Range, with notably worse weather than other sections, suffers from many of the same logistical problems as the Revelations, which sit just to the west.
However, at least one team made a successful ascent. Washington-based Jess Roskelley teamed with Anchorage-based Ben Erdmann to climb the unclimbed Northeast Face of Mount Augustin (8,514 feet) in April 2014, the second ascent of that mountain. The pair also made the first ascent of a route they called the SnickleFritz, German for "mischievous little boy," so named due to the fickle nature of the climbing unconsolidated snow and ice.
Untapped Potential
In early May, Paul Knott, a Brit living in New Zealand, teamed up with Kieran Parsons of New Zealand, to attempt the unclimbed East Ridge of Mount Crillon (12,726 feet) in Glacier Bay National Park. However, heavy snowfall, high winds and warm weather forced them to switch objectives. Instead, the pair headed to Johns Hopkins Glacier, where they made the first ascent of two non-technical peaks.
The following day the two made the first ascent of Peak 8,290, climbing a corniced ridge to a granite summit pyramid. A short stretch of rock climbing brought them to the summit. From here, the two were taken aback by what they saw -- a potential for many more new routes, including much longer ones, on the granite peaks in the area.
"From the summit, we could see just how much untapped potential exists for climbing and big walling in this knot of granite peaks," Knott said, according to Climbing Magazine. "The west side of Peak 8,290 sports a continuous 1,500-foot pillar, and other summits in the Mount Abbe group sport similar (granite) pillars up to 2,500 feet."
New Route in the Devils Thumb area
Roskelley returned to Alaska in late May after his April trip to the Kitchatnas, this time with Oregon climber John Frieh to the Devil's Thumb group of peaks on the Stikine Ice Cap. "Few peaks in North America inspire as much reverance as the Devil's Thumb," according to the Mountain Project website. "As the uncanny name suggests, this is a place of turmoil, frustration and tragedy. Despite boasting only a miserly 9,000 feet of altitude, the relatively low 3,000-foot base elevation provides sweeping walls of ice and granite."
Frieh, who has several first ascents in Alaska, known for watching the forecast and taking advantage of small windows of good weather. For this ascent, he caught a flight from Portland to Petersburg and then a helicopter across the bay and into the dramatic Devil's Thumb group.
It's a strategy that has proven successful for end-running the notoriously soggy weather of Southeast Alaska, and it worked again as Frieh and Roskelley climbed a new route on the West Witches Tit, a satellite peak of the prominent Devil's Thumb. The route was considerably harder than anticipated, however, including a short section of climbing up an icy "chimney" feature in the rock that took Roskelley, who shredded his clothing as he wiggled up the rock, two hours to climb.
The two named their route "No Rest For The Wicked." It required 36 hours camp-to-camp.
Hayes Range
Two Alaskans and a Utah resident teamed up to do a first ascent on 13,832-foot Mount Hayes, the namesake peak of the Hayes Range, the section of the Alaska Range that dominates Fairbanks' southern skyline and includes the mountains between the Parks and Richardson Highways.
Jason Stuckey of Fairbanks, John Giraldo of Anchorage and Angela VanWiemeersch of Utah originally intended to climb a route directly up the east face of Mount Hayes, an impressive sweep of snow and ice that has seen only a few ascents. However, all of their options appeared to be threatened by falling snow and ice, so they found a safer route on a northeast facing wall south of Mount Hayes' south summit. A long day of climbing brought them to the ridge, but they remained far from Mount Hayes' summit. Two more days of glaciated ridge climbing was needed before they reached the summit.
Denali area
The epicenter of Alaska climbing is the Central Alaska Range, accessible with a short flight by ski plane from Talkeetna.
McKinley itself saw no new routes climbed in 2014, though the intrepid Spanish mountain runner Killian Jornet visited the peak and smashed the old speed record. Jornet is slated to race in Seward's Mount Marathon race this summer and is considered a favorite.
Jornet made the trip up Denali's popular West Buttress route from the Kahiltna Basecamp, climbing 13,000 vertical feet -- and 16.5 miles -- to the summit in 9 hours 45 minutes. Despite worsening weather, he then skied back down in just over two hours for a total time of 11 hours, 48 minutes, besting the previous record by nearly five hours. The roundtrip was estimated at 33 miles.
Another notable ascent of Denali came in the early days of 2015, when Minnesota-based climber Lonnie Dupre became the first person to climb Denali solo in January. Though other winter first ascents happened in Alaska in 2014, this one was certainly the most discussed.
Three notable ascents of 12,241-foot Mount Huntington were completed in 2014, two via new routes. The aforementioned Frieh and Stuckey teamed up with Brad Farra in March to do the first winter ascent of French Ridge.
In early May, Huntington was climbed again, via a route called Polarchrome first climbed in 1984 but not again until last year's ascent by Jewell Lund of Utah and Chantel Astorga of Idaho, the first ascent by an all-female team and the first without using any direct aid during sections of rock climbing. Lund also teamed up with Kim Hall for another all-female ascent of the Escalator, a route on the south side of Mount Johnson. It was the first time climbing in Alaska for all three women, and Lund was impressed:
"Climbing in Alaska is pretty incredible, and I'm sure that in the next several years I'll be making a yearly mecca-trip. Flying into the central Alaska Range is like flying into the mountain range of your dreams," she said.
The only new route climbed on nearby Mount Huntington in 2014 was climbed in early May by Colorado climbers Will Mayo and Josh Wharton, who got a tip that there was a climbable ice route branching off an established route on the mountain's foreboding west face. The two found excellent conditions, and they were strong enough to take advantage, making the roundtrip in less than 14 hours. For a mountain that often takes several days to climb and descend, this time is astounding. The two traveled to Alaska in Mayo's small plane, making the trip in 19 hours, and then took a charter into the mountains. Just two days after leaving Colorado, they established their new route, which they called Scorched Granite.
In contrast to the speed and simplicity of Wharton and Mayo's ascent, Utah climbers Scott Adamson, Andy Knight and Aaron Child made the first ascent of a long and logistically complicated new route up 10,700-foot Idiot Peak, a small satellite peak just south of Huntington.
They named their route Down the Rabbit Hole, a name that refers to a descent down into a corner of the Tokositna Glacier that was required to reach the base of their route. The three spent a full day getting there, ascending and then descending thousands of feet in the process. They then spent another full day climbing to just below Idiot Peak's summit ridge. On their third day, they reached the summit and began to rappel, only to have to climb up again to their camp below Mount Huntington, requiring one more night out.
The 2015 Alaska climbing season is already underway, with more new routes being attempted. While scores of climbers will head to North America's tallest mountain, dozens more will scatter across the state looking for unique challenges on something that has seldom, or never, been touched before. Not all will succeed, but failure is a part of trying.
And they'll keep trying.
Seth Adams is an Alaska freelance writer and avid climber. Reach him at seth.d.adams@gmail.com.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story provided an incorrect height of the north face of Mount Johnson. It's about 4,000 feet. In addition, John Frieh is an Oregonian, not an Alaskan.