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FA in Centennial Range - Alaska/Yukon

PostPosted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 10:46 pm
by soderkisen
Does anyone know if there has been any recorded summit attempts on the peaks along the border near Mt. British Columbia and Mt. Yukon? What we know, is that only these two + Mt. Northwest been climbed back in 1967.

Here is a short movie teaser from our trip in april 2013. Two sucessfully summit attempts on two nameless but prominent peaks in the border zone:

http://expeditionyukon.wordpress.com/2014/03/22/en-liten-videouppdatering

Re: FA in Centennial Range - Alaska/Yukon

PostPosted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 11:36 pm
by Damien Gildea
I've looked into these peaks quite a bit and I have the book of the 1967 expedition.

I thought Mt. BC had had a second ascent not long ago, from the west? I don't know of any attempts on NW or Yukon, but I know a team was land low on the AK side by UT not long ago - south of Mt George, or was that you?

In the rest of the range, the unclimbed Mt. Saskatchewan has been attempted three(?) times since the 1967 attempt and also Mt New Brunswick is still unclimbed. On a couple of the peaks the '67 teams did not traverse cornices to the highest points, but on Mt New Brunswick they really were a fair distance away/below.

Re: FA in Centennial Range - Alaska/Yukon

PostPosted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 11:49 pm
by soderkisen
Yeah, that was probably us. :)

Our plan was to try Saskatchewan from north/west, but didnt find any secure and doable route to it. If we had been able to land on CA side we probably would have more days and a better attempt. Although it is a nasty face and really cracked glacier, hopefully there will be more climbers in the future trying this route.

So probably these peaks that was climbed by us was FAs then.

Re: FA in Centennial Range - Alaska/Yukon

PostPosted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 11:51 pm
by soderkisen
So all attempts on Saskatchewan except ours has been done from south, from walsh glacier. Is that correct?

Re: FA in Centennial Range - Alaska/Yukon

PostPosted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 2:56 am
by Damien Gildea
Yes, as far as I know they came from the Walsh to the Prairie Glacier southeast of the peak and at least two teams tried the northeast ridge.

What was the problem coming from the north / west? Could you not get to the Chitina then T-Bone Glaciers?

Re: FA in Centennial Range - Alaska/Yukon

PostPosted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 3:59 pm
by Old School WB
Climbing friends of mine; Steve M. and Trevor B., have attempted Mt. Saskatchewan twice, and may of again since, but I am not sure since haven't spoken with them in about 2 years. I think their first attempt was in 2005 and then in 2008, but I am not sure of the dates or the routes they attempted. The earlier attempt was with a large group and documented in the Canadian Alpine Journal, this trip may have been sponsored by Saskatchewan ACC section.

If interested in contacting them for background information, send me a PM and I will pass on their email contact.

Cheers
Kevin

Re: FA in Centennial Range - Alaska/Yukon

PostPosted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 5:55 pm
by Steve Gruhn
The second peak you climbed (Peak 9850) was first climbed on April 26, 1997, by Danny Kost and Mimi McDougall. Check out pages 226 and 227 of the 1998 American Alpine Journal.

http://aac-publications.s3.amazonaws.co ... 2_226b.pdf

Re: FA in Centennial Range - Alaska/Yukon

PostPosted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 7:30 am
by soderkisen
Steve Gruhn wrote:The second peak you climbed (Peak 9850) was first climbed on April 26, 1997, by Danny Kost and Mimi McDougall. Check out pages 226 and 227 of the 1998 American Alpine Journal.

http://aac-publications.s3.amazonaws.co ... 2_226b.pdf


Very interesting, it does seems like the same peak but Danny & Mimi might have started further below and not directly via the corridor/gully?

Need to check with my comrades as I wasnt with them on the summit. I also noticed that Paul Claus flew them out, if I remember correctly he said to us that he never landed on that glacier before. Although it was as was 17 years before! :)

Old School WB wrote:Climbing friends of mine; Steve M. and Trevor B., have attempted Mt. Saskatchewan twice, and may of again since, but I am not sure since haven't spoken with them in about 2 years. I think their first attempt was in 2005 and then in 2008, but I am not sure of the dates or the routes they attempted. The earlier attempt was with a large group and documented in the Canadian Alpine Journal, this trip may have been sponsored by Saskatchewan ACC section.

If interested in contacting them for background information, send me a PM and I will pass on their email contact.

Cheers
Kevin


I dont think we have any plans to go there again in any near future. But if we do, I am still very keen to try on Saskatchewan from the North again. Do you know if your friends have any new plans for it?

Damien Gildea wrote:Yes, as far as I know they came from the Walsh to the Prairie Glacier southeast of the peak and at least two teams tried the northeast ridge.

What was the problem coming from the north / west? Could you not get to the Chitina then T-Bone Glaciers?


We didnt have enough time time to pass the whole massif to reach t-bone due the conditions of Chitina Glacier, very dry nowdays not so good for skiing at all! We had to cross saddle near mount British Columbia and down climb it to reach the glacier, which meant, from our BC, 4-5 days in biouvac with very light equipment. But the main problem I guess was the weather, we only hade small windows of climbing weather, 1-1 /12 days at the time, then bad storms and snow.

Re: FA in Centennial Range - Alaska/Yukon

PostPosted: Thu Mar 27, 2014 8:26 pm
by Joljon
I am one of the members of the Expedition 2013 together with Soderkisen. I have read the description by Danny Kost and Mimi McDougall. From what I understand they did an other peak than the one we did. We did the one to the east of the basin (southeast of the peak P10 000). Danny Kost and Mimi McDougall followed the ridge NORTH after the bergschrund.

We never made the second peak P9850 that you can see in the film. We turned around because we found it to prone to avalanches.

10010214_10152053645458137_2052621752_o.jpg
10010214_10152053645458137_2052621752_o.jpg (170.95 KiB) Viewed 9239 times

Re: FA in Centennial Range - Alaska/Yukon

PostPosted: Thu Mar 27, 2014 9:25 pm
by Vitaliy M.
You guys should post a few pretty pictures at least! :D

Re: FA in Centennial Range - Alaska/Yukon

PostPosted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 10:56 pm
by Steve Gruhn
Here's an excerpt from an email I received today from Danny Kost regarding the second peak you climbed (aka Peak 9850).

Steve,

After looking at my maps, you are right that Mimi and I climbed the peak they call P9850' on 4/26/97 on the north side of the glacier and lies right on the border. We had landed at 7200' and went up the little glacier to the north before turning east to go up the ridge to the summit. We climbed over P 8580' and along the ridge across the main glacier on the 4/28 which is a peak due southwest of P9850' by about a mile. I'd have to read the AAJ write up to refresh my memory more, but it is stored away right now.

I had climbed Mt. Chitina to the west back in 1988 and had scouted this area during that earlier trip.

Re: FA in Centennial Range - Alaska/Yukon

PostPosted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 11:17 am
by Joljon
Steve Gruhn wrote:Here's an excerpt from an email I received today from Danny Kost regarding the second peak you climbed (aka Peak 9850).

Steve,

After looking at my maps, you are right that Mimi and I climbed the peak they call P9850' on 4/26/97 on the north side of the glacier and lies right on the border. We had landed at 7200' and went up the little glacier to the north before turning east to go up the ridge to the summit. We climbed over P 8580' and along the ridge across the main glacier on the 4/28 which is a peak due southwest of P9850' by about a mile. I'd have to read the AAJ write up to refresh my memory more, but it is stored away right now.

I had climbed Mt. Chitina to the west back in 1988 and had scouted this area during that earlier trip.


Well, we must be humble about the possiblity that the peaks we did has been done Before. But it is a little bit hard to know if we are talking about the same peaks. We never called any peak for P9850 (it's first mentiond in your first post). I understand that you have concluded from our video that the second peak is the one with the long small Ridge. If that is the peak P9850 that you refer to, we haven't claimed it, because we never made the top.

I am a bit curious about the P9874 that D. Kost is Writing about in American Alpine Journal. I might have been this top we made.

Re: FA in Centennial Range - Alaska/Yukon

PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2014 12:03 am
by Steve Gruhn
Joel, I had sent a map to Danny with Peak 9850 (my terminology) labeled at the coordinates you provided (N60º57’22, [W]141º00’10) on your detailed expedition log (http://expeditionyukon.wordpress.com/20 ... en-dag-14/), which I used Google translate to translate from Swedish to English. The summit elevation of that peak is shown on the USGS topographic map as being between 9800 and 9900 feet (hence the 9850 notation). Here's a link to maps of the area that have been stitched together: http://www.peakbagger.com/peak.aspx?pid=24151. Click on "CalTopo" in the upper right corner of the map and then move the map to the west a bit to see the peaks on the Alaska side of the border. Peak 9850 is the next peak south (and slightly east) of Point 9547 (which is the point below your arrow in the google maps image you posted above, I think).

Peak 9874 was called Mount Vermont in Sam Nelson's trip report on pages 221 and 222 of the 2001 American Alpine Journal and is about 2.5 miles west of P9850. http://aac-publications.s3.amazonaws.co ... 75_221.pdf