By Justin T. Carreño
In 1998 I spent the summer in Denali National Park, Alaska as an
intern with the National Park Service, and as a cook at the Denali
Park hotel, but it was the mountains that really drew me there. That
summer I had Scott Peak in my sites. I planned a long weekend to
tackle this project. It was only 8,828 feet high, but at that latitude
a mountain can be formidable. As it turned out this became one of my
more daunting adventures, and not because of the altitude or technical
difficulty.
Although Denali was the ultimate mountain treasure in the Park, that
would have to wait. Scott Peak I identified as a reasonable, yet
impressive, and significant summit I could attempt that summer, taking
no more than 3 days. Scott Peak is the highest peak in the Alaska
Range immediately south of Camp Eielson (Mile 65) on the Denali Park
Highway. It lies on the very backbone of the range, 33 miles east of
Denali, occupying a position of extreme importance from a survey
standpoint. It was first climbed in 1952 by a team who followed the
Sunset glacier to its head and then climbed to the summit, for the
most part by way of the main central ridge at the head of the glacier.
Camps were established at 5,000 feet at the main bend of Sunset
glacier and at the base of the ridge at about 6,300 feet.
I had another draw to this mountain. It was first mapped by the
original paragon of mountain surveying – Bradford Washburn (born
1910). Washburn was someone I knew of and admired, and pioneered many
routes in the Alaska Range. The plan was to take the route he
established on Scott Peak. The route was similar to the 1952 party’s
route, but instead of following the crest of the ridge to the summit
of the Peak, he’d keep on the southeast side, where excellent snow
slopes lead to another little snow col (8,400 ft.), a few hundred
yards to its right (east), where the top is easily reached on a
beautiful snow arête. When this detour is made, all rock is avoided.
As we later discovered it would seem that there is not a single stable
rock anywhere on Scott Peak!
The mountain was named by Bradford Washburn in commemoration of LTJG
Gordon D. Scott, United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, who lost his
life in the service of his country while engaged in aerial surveying
operations in Denali National Park. On 11 June 1953 the Piper Cub
carrying LTJG Scott and piloted by Knute H. Bergh of Bellingham, WA
crashed against a hill in Denali Park as the plane was returning to
camp from a flight check. Both occupants of the plane were killed. The
US Board on Geographic Names approved Washburn’s recommendation that
one of the mountains located near the scene of the fatal accident be
named Scott Peak.
Upon returning to Connecticut after this 1998 summer in Alaska, I
immediately got in touch with Washburn, a Worcester, MA, native (I was
born there, as well) who, at the time, was honorary director of the
Boston Museum of Science. I wrote about my Alaskan climbing interest
and my ascent of Scott Peak in the Alaska Range that summer. Washburn
was more than willing to talk about it and we kept in regular
correspondence for a time. Sadly, he died in January 2007 – the same
year I climbed Denali via the Washburn route, named after him.
While working as a cook at the hotel I met many wonderful characters.
Jay, another cook and climber, I got to know. He was a more of a free
spirit, a veritable pot head, but experienced. He was tall and lanky,
but a strong climber. I mentioned climbing Scott Peak to him, and
before I could finish what I was asking, he agreed to go. Ellie was a
sweet, grandmotherly type, who was a pantry chef. She made amazing
cookies – chocolate chip, peanut butter, sugar – and were something I
always looked forward to. She was critical to our planning because
before we left for our trip, she surprised us with cookies she packed
for us.
As often with climbers, we enjoyed the planning process. We planned
the route, the gear, the food. It was going to be a simple 2 days and
3rd day for contingency. We had to move fast, so we packed with
minimal supplies to keep our weight down. The approach to the
mountain, we realized, would be just as impressive as the climb. As it
turned out the approach, at approximately 12 miles one way to the
glacier, became more challenging than the actual mountain itself. We
had to cross the biting cold, torrential Thorofare River, and
bushwhack through the willows all the while getting attacked by
massive misquotes. It was arduous, with the wilderness being more
rebellious than expected.
The work left us with such little energy by the time we made it to the
glacier headwall, but we strapped on our crampons, and made our way up
the icy slopes, having to remove and put on the crampons multiple
times, when our only choice was the broken unstable rock. Our timeline
forced us to make it to base camp that night and we were slow going.
After about 8 hours of fighting against the wilderness, my body needed
to lie down. I proposed to Jay we make camp where we were, and just
leave earlier than planned the next day. He countered that I drop my
pack where it was, and he would go back to retrieve it. I was
skeptical, but I went along with it. We hiked to our base camp, and as
Jay returned to get my gear as promised, I lied down on the rock, and
drifted in and out of consciousness awed by the views.
With our first day’s objective complete – to get to base camp – we
looked for solid real estate, which was nothing more than a bivy site.
It was a scree-laden, dry area on the glacier, but no level area. Warm
valley winds were driving up the mountain. Exhausted, I looked at Jay,
and we thought the same thing – no place for a tent. We agreed we
weren’t going any further to find a good site, and forewent the tent.
I threw my sleeping pad and bag in a convenient, protected area,
cramming myself between jagged rocks. My view looked down the valley
out through Sunset Glacier, and as I looked out, the namesake of the
glacier was in full view – I fell asleep looking at the most
beautiful, wild, inspiring sunset I’d ever witnessed.
The next morning after listening to small avalanches rattle us all
night, we awoke to the most unnerving site – on the upper mountain
fresh snowfall blanketed the slopes, making it ripe for avalanches,
and we saw where snow broke from the mountain and avalanched into
funnels. We both knew we had to turn back. The avalanche danger would
be too much. Little did we know our adventure was just starting.
It was 4 July – “Happy birthday, America,” I announced – we were ready
to make our way back to where our adventure began. Jay, being what I
call crazy, went off on his own along the ridge line as I stayed at
the bottom of the valley. We paralleled and stayed within eye-shot of
each other, planning to meet up later. This frustrated and angered me.
I told him we need to stick together. I noticed he was doing more and
more riskier stuff. We couldn't hear each other because of the
distance and strong winds sweeping down the valley. I just kept
thinking, “I'm going be going home alone.” I kept looking at the route
he took, and it looked like he couldn't get back to me without
backtracking or coming down the steep slope, which looked as if it
wasn't possible. Sure enough I see him “scree skiing” down into the
valley in my direction…and then I see him lose control, and then
tumble down the sharp rocks. I was in his fall line and he was
dislodging the rock, and it was tumbling making a landslide. I moved
out of the way. He finally landed not too far away, but the already
loose rock just all came crashing down. Then suddenly he came to a
stop. I knew he was hurt, but I couldn’t worry about it. I ran over to
him, grabbed him from under his arms, and pulled him out of the fall
line of the scree.
He was cut up and couldn’t get up right away. Jay was strong and
tenacious. He assessed himself and I did a rough exam of him. He
twisted his ankle. There was a small, but relatively deep, bloody
laceration across his calf. He asked if I saw anything significant. I
assumed he didn't feel it, so I said just some scrapes (knowing that
when the adrenalin wore off he’d feel it). I lied, reassuring him that
it wasn’t bad, but I needed to wrap it. I just thought to myself, “I
hope he can put weight on it when he gets up.” We had a day of hiking
through rough terrain ahead of us.
We rested, refueled, looked at the map, reviewed the route. I didn’t
show it, but I was ecstatic with joy that Jay could walk because I
knew if I had to walk out alone and leave him alone, this already
precarious situation, would escalate the risk significantly. We were
on our way, and, although Jay could walk, his injuries and pain slowed
our progress. We knew this was going to be a long haul. After hiking a
few hours, we decided to take what we thought was a shortcut by
crossing the river early using a convenient ice bridge. We were
thrilled knowing this would make up for some of the delay. The river,
at this point, was actually inside the glacier, called subglacial
flow, forming a beautiful blue ice cave, which I explored a bit before
moving up onto the bridge.
We were sure we were in a good spot. We stopped to look at the map,
but the map was nowhere to be found. We were both devastated – in all
the excitement of moving on, we must have left the map at the point
where Jay recovered, hours away. We thought for a split second to go
back, but knew it would've likely blown away with the high Chinook
winds coming down the valley. So we took the alternative approach, and
assessed we were in a good situation – We knew where we were, and knew
where we were going. We're on the north side and don't have to cross
the river later – perfect! We trudged on sticking together now.
We've been going for about 6 hrs when one of the most demoralizing,
shattering things stood ahead of us – we noticed the river cut along
the side of the mountain ending our route, and any exit out. We had
two options: attempt to cross the river, which at this point was
impossible with how fast it was flowing, or backtrack 6+ hours to get
back to the ice bridge and follow our original route along the south
side of the river.
Now low on food, clean water, energy, and injured, we found ourselves
thinking of "what ifs." We joked about rescue, but we both knew the
reality that we might actually need outside help, and, without comms
or flares, how to get help, we weren’t sure.
We took a break, reconnoitered, and reassessed our situation. I was
weak, Jay was injured, we were low on supplies, we had no map, no way
to communicate with the outside world. We were alone in the deep,
rough, remote, unforgiving, beautiful Alaska wilderness.
The decision, given our situation and lack of options, was actually
easy to make. We decided we’d have to backtrack our route up the
glacier, traverse the ice bridge, cross to the south side of river,
and navigate down the glacier, through the Thorofare River, into the
valley, and up the ridge to back to our starting point at Eielson
Visitor Center on Denali Park road. It was summer in Alaska and
endless daylight, which was one literal and figurative “ray of light”
in our dark situation. We were set on making continual progress no
matter how slow we’d have to go.
We spent the next 12 hours, motivated by survival, making one step at
time back to civilization, back to safety, back to the familiar. At
one point it didn’t seem like Jay could go on after one of our rests,
with his leg throbbing in pain. I told him I’d get help. He could
stay. He insisted he’d go on. He could still move, albeit slowly, so
we decided it would be better to stick together until one of us
couldn’t, in fact, move. The threat of the unknown, the potential of
getting lost, injured, or swept to our death while fording the river,
was not worth the risk at this point.
We desperately carried on for what seemed like an eternity, walking,
shuffling, hobbling, anything to get forward movement. We were now
deep in the valley with beautiful green life, and now at the river
crossing. We were now at the river crossing, and we knew it wouldn’t
be long, only a relatively short amount of time – we were thinking 4-5
hours before we were back to the road. We were hungry and weak, so we
knew our level of alertness, vigilance, and attentiveness would have
to be extremely fine-tuned, and focused to cross the river – one false
step and we’d be swept to our deaths.
But another threat besides the river concerned us. On the other side
of the river we spotted a mother bear and her cubs. To continue along
the route up the ridge, we’d have to cross her path. Typically, bears
didn’t concern themselves with humans, but we didn’t want to test
this. Bears can run up to 30 mph – we would be no match. We had a
river between us, and we felt relatively safe. But the longer we
waited, the more fatigued and weaker we got. There was sunlight, but
it was late. The river was the last significant objective hazard we’d
face (as long as the bears didn’t get in our way). We decided to put
the river behind us, and get to the other side. We’d worry about the
bears once we crossed. We focused. We changed our footwear, released
our straps on our packs, and plunged our feet into the water,
receiving a frigid shock cold reverberating through every bone in my
body. (When fording rivers you always release the straps in the case
you do get swept away, the pack won’t weigh you down, or get hung up
on anything, and potentially drown you). We went together, shuffling
our feet along the river bed in the most treacherous spots. Every
shuffle, every step was intentional and deliberate, being careful not
to trip over any rocks, knowing one misstep could mean being swept
into a cold death. I was concerned about Jay with his weak ankle and
injuries, but he persevered. As I progressed, I became too focused to
be bothered by the stinging chill of the water.
As we made our final step onto the shore, we dropped our packs and
collapsed. I didn’t realize how much energy I expended just being so
focused, like driving in a New England blizzard. Now to tackle our
next hazard – the bears. We looked into the valley and up the ridge
where we saw them before, but they were nowhere to be found. We were
so concentrated on the task at hand we didn’t notice the bears moved
on. They certainly could be in the willow bushes we thought. Now that
we were in bear country we strapped on our “bear bells.” These are
bells used alert bears of your presence, which allegedly means they
won’t get scared from the surprise, and it won’t trigger their fight
response. How true that is who knows.
We took a long rest on the river bank. We took inventory of our food –
barely anything. Then I remembered the cookies Ellie had given me. I
had shoved them inside my parka inside pocket. I pulled the two packs
out wrapped in saran wrap. Jay was just laying down staring into
space. I took a pack and threw it at him. It bounced off his chest. He
picked it up and he had the biggest smile on his face. We were both so
thankful for Ellie. We devoured some of the cookies, drank the rest of
the clean water we had. We filled our bottles with the river water so
we had something, not knowing how long we’d be out there. We
considered staying there for the night because we were so tired, but
we so desperately wanted to get back to the relative safety of the
road and visitor center. As long as I was moving I was making
progress. We decided to keep going.
We were deep in the thick willow bushes that we had navigate through.
The mosquitoes were ferociously biting. I would stop and swat them
from my face, and it would be such sweet relief. It felt so good to
slap the bugs off of me and keep them from biting. But then the stark
realization was that if I stopped, I wasn’t moving, I wasn’t making
progress. So I begrudgingly let the bugs take their home biting me,
and I went back to bushwhacking. It was strenuous work. Sweat soaked
my clothes, and annoyingly kept pouring down my face.
Jay was ahead of me. We were making our way up the ridge. We knew we
were close now. We made our final push. We saw the visitor center in
the distance. We were excited, but too exhausted to show it. We came
over the ridge, dragged ourselves to the building – finally we were
safe! We made it! It was about 2am. The visitor center didn’t open
until 6am. It was closed, but the bathrooms were open. We crawled into
the bathroom. It was disgusting, but a warm, safe disgusting. We
passed out on the floor. A ranger making rounds found us there, and
woke us. “Hey, you’re not allowed in here. You guys ok?” The ranger
wasn’t too sympathetic until we told him we were permitted
mountaineers that just returned from attempting Scott Peak, and we
were injured. That got his attention, and he immediately started
treating us like royalty. We packed into his truck and drove us the 3
hours back to the park headquarters – back to beautiful, sweet
civilization – the same civilization we were so excited to escape just
days earlier.
I slept for about a day, we both hydrated our way back to life, Jay
got treated, and his leg eventually healed. We went back to work. Our
adventure was poignant as many treks into the wilderness are. It was a
great trip. I learned that self-reliance and self-doubt go
hand-in-hand, and every decision, no matter how small, can have
magnified effects either for good or bad. When I felt defeated and
destroyed, the sunset brought joy, swatting the misquotes brought
relief – I learned that in the darkest of moments, there will always
be a glimmer of beauty, a place of comfort, no matter how remote or
far away it might seem.
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