“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcom- ing them is what makes life the SCREE meaningful.” — Joshua J. Marine Mountaineering Club of Alaska July 2018 Volume 61 Number 7 Contents Lake Benchmark Mountain Forgotten Peak Peak 3766 Mount Russell Bench Peak Bidarka Peak Mount Eklutna and Flag Mountain The Alaskan Monster" and "The Stump Rider," Peak of the Month: Peak 42 Monthly meeting: Adjourned for the summer. The Mountaineering Club of Alaska www.mtnclubak.org "To maintain, promote, and perpetuate the association of persons who are interested in promoting, sponsoring, im- proving, stimulating, and contributing to the exercise of skill and safety in the Art and Science of Mountaineering." This issue brought to you by: Editor—Steve Gruhn assisted by Dawn Munroe Cover Photo Announcements Carrie Wang climbing the upper ridge of Peak 3766. MCA Hut Closures for summer 2018 Photo by Wayne Todd Mint Hut will be closed for maintenance July 13, 14, and 15, 2018. Bomber Hut will be closed for maintenance July 16, 17, and JULY MEETING 18, 2018. Monthly meeting: Adjourned for the summer. Plan to sleep outside the hut if you are in the area. Greg Bragiel - MCA huts chair Hiking and Climbing Schedule Backcountry.com 15% purchases will only be given to members July 13-21 MCA Summer Mountaineering Instructional Trip. (working on details now). Training/ learning goals: Trip organization, leadership, meal Working on more discounts that will be for club members as well. planning, navigation, route-finding, Snow travel, running belay, Let’s not forget the AMH discounts, speakers through the year, and snow anchors, knots, 10 essentials, Terminology, Glacier travel, of course the amazing huts. Small price to pay for a great club! Ice Climbing, Belaying, Crevasse rescue, Wilderness medicine, Article Submission: Text and photography submissions for Bouldering, Rock climbing, Rappelling and more while traveling the Scree can be sent as attachments to [email protected]. the Bomber Traverse. Leader: Greg Bragiel: [email protected], Articles should be submitted by the 24th of each month to appear 350-5146 Deadline to sign on for this trip April 17. in the next issue of the Scree. Do not submit material in the body of For the MCA Membership Application and Liability Waiver, visit the email. Do not submit photos embedded in the text file. Send http://www.mtnclubak.org/index.cfm?useaction=members.form. the photo files separately. Send high resolution file photos sepa- rately, including captions for each photo. We prefer articles that Choate's Chuckle - Tom Choate are under 1,000 words. If you have a blog, website, video, or photo links, send us the link. Cover photo selections are based on por- Q: In trad climbing, pitons and bolts needed the same thing that traits of human endeavor in the outdoors. Please submit at least alcoholics want. What's that? one vertically-oriented photo for consideration for the cover. Answer: on page 21. Please don’t forget to submit photo captions. Contents Lake Benchmark Mountain, Endicott Mountains ................................................................................................................................. 3 Forgotten Peak (5894 feet), Coast Mountains ...................................................................................................................................... 7 Peak 3766 (1148 meters), Chugach Mountains .................................................................................................................................... 9 Mount Russell (11670 feet), Alaska Range ......................................................................................................................................... 11 Bench Peak (5575 feet), Kenai Mountains.......................................................................................................................................... 12 Bidarka Peak (3835 feet), Western Chugach Mountains .................................................................................................................... 13 Mount Eklutna (4065 feet) and Flag Mountain (4009 feet), Western Chugach Mountains ............................................................... 14 “The Alaskan Monster" and "The Stump Rider," New Rock Routes, Ruth Gorge, Alaska Range ....................................................... 15 Peak of the Month: Peak 42, Bendeleben Mountains ........................................................................................................................ 16 Board of Directors Meeting Minutes, April 9, 2018 ............................................................................................................................ 17 Board of Directors Meeting Minutes, May 7, 2018 ............................................................................................................................ 18 Board of Directors Meeting Minutes, June 11, 2018 .......................................................................................................................... 22 Online? Click me! Check the Meetup site and Facebook for last-minute trips and activities. Or, schedule one that you want to organize. Scree—July 2018 2 Lake Benchmark Mountain (5050 feet), Endicott Mountains, Brooks Range Text and photos by Lupe Lunde and SPHP August 19, 2017, Day 20 of Lupe’s 2017 Dingo Vacation to the Yukon and Alaska! Start - 11:32 a.m., 42° Fahrenheit at a large parking area on the west side of the Dalton Highway just south of the bridge over the Atigun River. The morning fog was gone. Low clouds still covered much of the sky, but patch- es of blue let sunshine through in spots. This was it! Lupe's chance for an attempt on Lake Benchmark Mountain (5050 feet) had arrived! The mountain sat along the north edge of Alaska's fa- bled Brooks Range. If the sky kept clear- ing this afternoon, the American Dingo would have a spectacular view of the North Slope from the summit. Full of enthusiasm, Lupe and her slow-plodding Lake Benchmark Mountain (left) on August 23, 2017. Photo looks northeast. human porter (SPHP) set out heading north across the bridge over the Atigun River. dry. Lupe followed the edge of a long ravine containing a small North of the river, Lupe turned east on an access road leading stream. Views of Galbraith Lake and the Atigun River back to to the trans-Alaska pipeline service road. Soon she was having a the west and south became increasingly impressive. riot exploring nearby tundra while SPHP followed the service Lupe continued far beyond the end of the stream. The slope of road north. A beautiful, high rounded ridge was east of the the ridge was gradually diminishing, but Lupe never reached pipeline. That ridge was the way to Lake Benchmark Mountain, any definite crest. She was wandering up an enormous slope only a few miles north-northeast from here. After going 0.5 that kept going higher. mile north along the pipeline, Lupe and SPHP turned northeast and began climbing the beautiful ridge. The lower and upper slopes were spongy, boggy, and full of tussocks. Only the steepest part of the ridge was relatively After a good beginning climb, Lupe has a great view of the Atigun Crossing the Atigun River. Photo looks east. River valley. Photo looks south. Scree—July 2018 3 A big hill was ahead at the far north end of the ridge. SPHP be- west. lieved that hill was either part of Lake Benchmark Mountain or Might as well check out the rest of this hill. Lupe climbed north- would lead to it, but wanted to get a view of the territory east of west. Eventually, she could see a ridge above shaped vaguely like there in order to confirm what Lake Benchmark that opinion. Lupe traveled Mountain’s summit ought northeast for what seemed to look like, but hardly any like a long way, but before detail could be seen she got high enough, clouds through the fog. How much and fog suddenly blew in higher was it? SPHP out of the west. The Caroli- guessed maybe 500 or 600 na Dog wasn’t going to be vertical feet. The rain, able to see anything to the which had slackened up, east now. She gave up on now returned as snow. The that idea, and headed snow wasn’t sticking yet, straight for the big hill at the but added to SPHP's grow- north end of the ridge. ing sense of uneasi- Fog completely took ness. Lupe wasn’t un- over. The hill Lupe was Going up the foggy ramps. easy. She was wet, cold, heading for disappeared. So and miserable. did everything else except immediately surrounding terrain. SPHP Wandering around alone up on mountains on the north side of used occasional large, isolated boulders to help keep Looper the Brooks Range in rain and snow with almost no visibil- aimed in the right direction, sighting along them to the next boul- ity? Maybe this was getting just a little too stupid. SPHP asked der the Carolina Dog should head for. Loopster if she wanted to go back to the G6? The American Dingo Lupe reached the base of the hill, and began to climb more steep- gave her most ecstatic, enthusiastic response possible. A bitter ly. She went up a series of defeat, but there seemed rocky ramps and bench- to be no sensible alterna- es. This was much firmer tive. Lupe and SPHP started ground, free of the bogs back down. and tussocks present lower Lupe hadn’t lost much ele- down on the big vation yet when suddenly a ridge. SPHP had a far easier break appeared in the time here, despite the clouds. The snow end- greater angle of ascent. ed. Galbraith Lake was in Partway up the hill, Lupe sight! Out came the topo came to a level