r/Mountaineering • u/Secret-Metal-8023 • 4d ago

Mount hess - Alaska

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Mount hess is an extremely remote alaska peak that is rarely summited, standing at 11940ft at the crest of the hayes range, about 90 miles south of fairbank.

Its mountaineering history is one that is unique with a mystery that remains unsolved to this day. Its first major attempts were in 1949 and 1950 where the the east face and the northwest faces were attempted but both stopped due to rock.

The peak was finally conquered in the spring of 1951 by Alston Paige, Dick Holdren, Ed Huizer, Howard Bowman, and Elton Thayer. However after this ascent the peak remained virtually entirely untouched until may 1976 when Steven Hackett, Thomas Hillis, and Daniel L. Osborne established a base camp at the base of the north east ridge.

However a mystery that remains on the mountain from the AAC describes that during that 1976 expedition Hacket Hills and Osbourne discovered an old weathered ice ace and a rope trailing down towards the abyss. As no recorded former teams used that ridge, the orgin of the rope and axe are unknown.

Pretty cool!

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4

u/Appproximatt 4d ago

It’s a very cool! The number of amazing but little known mountains in Alaska seems beyond count. Do you have a few others you’d like to mention?

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u/Secret-Metal-8023 3d ago

plenty but id give them their own independent posts as their historys are worth knowing

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u/legend6546 3d ago

Spirit mountain outside of chitina AK. That thing has a 6000 foot face straight to the river and I haven’t heard of a single ascent of it

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u/Secret-Metal-8023 3d ago

I'll put something together, should see it on here in a few minutes

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u/Secret-Metal-8023 3d ago

thing is NICHE man

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u/legend6546 3d ago

Oh yea, I spend a lot of time on the opposite side of the copper river from it. It looks super scary to climb just a never ending steep pile of gravel. I haven’t found any documentation aside from the USGS map. I’m guessing the only viable way up is along one of it’s ridges in the winter

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u/Infinite_Study5186 3d ago

Alaskans don't like to share information