Climbing
The first ascent of University Peak was in 1955, via the North Ridge. The leader was Kieth Hart, University of Alaska. The party consisted of Gib Reynolds, Columbia University, Leon Blumer, Sydney, Australia, Tim Kelley, University of Washington, Sheldon Brooks, Pacific Lutheran College and Norman Sanders, University of Alaska. The climbers started at the foot of the Hawkins Glacier, and negotiated a difficult icefall to gain a basin at around 10,000 feet (3,000 m) elevation, on the west side of the North Ridge. This is still the recommended easiest route, but now one can fly into the 10,000-foot (3,000 m) basin to avoid the icefall. This route is rated Alaska Grade 2+.
A much harder route (Alaska Grade 5) was climbed on the East Face of the peak (from the Barnard Glacier) in 1997, by Carlos Buhler and Charlie Sassara.
This East Face route, named "Third Semester", involves 8,500 feet (2,600 m) of 50-80 degree snow, ice and rock capped with a 300 foot (90 m) vertical ice cliff. The descent is via the North Ridge. The first ascent party took 6 days to complete the traverse, including 2 days of storm that prevented movement.
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Famous quotes containing the word climbing:
“An old, mad man still climbing in his ghost,
My fathers’ ghost is climbing in the rain.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“Flee from the press and dwell with soothfastness;
Suffice unto thy good though it be small,
For hoard hath hate and climbing ticklishness,
Press hath envy and weal blent overall;”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“There is, however, this consolation to the most way-worn traveler, upon the dustiest road, that the path his feet describe is so perfectly symbolical of human life,—now climbing the hills, now descending into the vales. From the summits he beholds the heavens and the horizon, from the vales he looks up to the heights again. He is treading his old lessons still, and though he may be very weary and travel-worn, it is yet sincere experience.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)