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| Mountain Goat. My spirit animal. Little Mount Sumdum in the background. |
I bear sprayed myself and I wasn’t trying to hit a bear. It’s the second time in my life I have done that and both times it was accidental. Both times I was with my friend Mike. The first was on a trip to a peak on Admiralty Island ten years ago. More on that later.
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Peak 5260 east side of Endicott Arm Southeast Alaska. |
This plan was to climb a peak we called Peak 5,260 on the east side of Endicott Arm just 4 miles southeast of Mount Sumdum. Mount Sumdum is 6,666 feet tall so it is indeed haunted by the devil himself. Sumdum was a village of Tlingkit Natives living in the area years ago, not an insult to the glacier’s or the mountain’s intelligence. It’s Sumdum, not Some Dumb. The glacier no longer reaches the sea but is still a very cool site. There are several tidewater glaciers in the area on both the Tracy Arm and Endicott Arms of Holkum Bay. Endicott Arm is hundreds of miles from the Endicott Wilderness that I wrote about HERE in 2020, though named after the same person. William Endicott was the Secretary of War under President Grover Cleveland, 1885-1889. I wonder how many Native Americans he had killed to get his name on the Endicott Arm.
Endicott Arm is part of the Tracy Arm Wilderness Area. Both arms are extensive fjords, packed with ice bergs, less so near the mouth of the fjord which is where we were. Still, it’s wise to lookout for those things. It was a strange and cool experience being on iceberg look out. Our concern was bergy bits, just little bergs that are hard to see, yet weigh in at over a ton. Mike owns a sixteen foot aluminum boat.
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| Orcas seen on the boat ride to Endicott Arm |
Despite the events surrounding the Titanic, they are easy see if you are looking, it isn’t night, and easy to avoid if you aren’t in a massive vessel. On a sunny day at ten in the morning we cruised right along. Cruise ships hit the bergy bits and bounce right off. The cruise industry and adventure kayaking tours makes it such that many people see and photograph fjords of Holkum Bay but almost nobody sets foot on dry ground. There are large icebergs too and they are easy to see.
A cruise ship is a monument to gluttony and a stain on the human race. Sure, we went to Endicott Arm in a motor boat that burns gasoline, 25 gallons were burned. A cruise ship creates more greenhouse gasses than some countries. This is not an exaggeration. If you live in an inland area, you may not have seen one up close. Some are bigger than the Empire State Building. don’t hide that they are gluttons in every way so I guess they are honest in that regard. They brag a 24 hour buffet. On a cruise one can see Alaska, or think you see Alaska, without actually experiencing Alaska. The same is likely true for cruises to other locations. This, I think, is by design. Actual travel takes you out of your comfort zone a little, either physically or culturally. The cruise ship allows one to travel about while only changing lawn chairs. Meanwhile guzzling diesel fuel and the 24 hour buffet like there’s no tomorrow.
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| Bergy bit |
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| Sumdum Mt and Glacier |
Our plan was to access the beach at the foot of Peak 5260 on Saturday morning, hike up through the forest to above tree line, camp Saturday night, climb Peak 5260 Sunday morning, back to the beach, and motor back to Juneau. It’s about six miles and 5,260 vertical feet to the summit one way. As I write this, it seems unrealistic that we thought we could do it in two days. We didn’t make it back Sunday night even though no shit happened except that we are both almost 61. Thus slower than we used to be.
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| 1,000 + foot waterfalls |
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| Peak 5,290 from boat |
We made
it to the beach at the foot of Peak 5260 by 10AM. When we got there we dumped
the gear for climbing and camping on the beach and Mike moored the boat a
little offshore. We didn’t want the boat to drift away with a high tide or
beached on a low tide. Once the boat was anchored offshore Mike rowed to shore
in his packraft. By 10:30AM we were hiking uphill carrying overnight camping
gear, a trad rack, 50 m climbing rope, climbing harnesses, crampons, and ice axes.
We didn’t bring bug spray and that wasn’t a good omission.
There
are no trails in the Tracy Arm Wilderness Area. The Forest Service figures
trails aren’t needed because you cannot drive there (no roads) and the closest
town is Juneau, 60 miles away by boat. The Forest Service is likely correct. If they built a trail it would like grow over in a few years due to very
infrequent use. The Endicott Arm is vastly wilder than Juneau where trails
abound. We encountered Devil’s Club and many fallen logs in large quantities
right away. Devil’s Club is so named not because Sumdum Mountain is 6,666 feet
tall but because it is adorned in spines. It is to Southeast Alaska what
jumping is the Sonoran Desert. By and by the terrain became steeper, about
average 25 degrees. The Devil’s thinned a little but fallen logs got worse. I
cursed under my breath a lot while trying to climb uphill over logs that were
covered Devil’s Club. Going was slow.
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| Devil's Club |
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| Field of Devil's Club |
We made it to a high camp at 3,248 feet after eight hours of bushwhacking. It was only two miles. For some reason both Mike and I love this shit. We would have taken a trail if one existed. The camp was buggy. The camp was also spectacular. Mike carried two white Russians in a can the whole way. Two things will happen if Mike and I get to the Pearly Gates on the same day (we came to Earth on the same day). First, we are both going to be shocked that there is an afterlife and second, I will plead that Mike should go to heaven for carrying two white Russians in cans up that mountain. We ate mostly dehydrated food that tasted great and swatted at bugs while sitting a boulder. I have seen bugs much worse but they still sucked. We went to bed early.
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| Mike. Boat moored offshore |
Our plan was to bring one two person tent and share. I opted to sleep outside for reasons that seemed sound. I toss and turn a lot and my sleeping pad was leaky so I didn’t want wake Mike on a routine basis. These were NOT sound reasons. I covered my head in a tee shirt and the bugs bit right through. I added a jacket and that stopped the biting bastards but it got hot. Around midnight it cooled enough that bugs slowed their plans to eat me alive and it wasn’t so hot with the jacket. I arose and started coffee and breakfast. Mike said he wanted to leave early for the summit and I was not sleeping.
Lack of
sleep defined the day, though I was not aware of how much until later on.
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| High Camp |
We left
our camping gear at high camp and were on our way to the summit of Peak 5,250 by
4:30 AM. We reached our first peak soon at 3,600 feet. From there we perceived
that the summit might not be possible with the gear we had. We did not bring climbing shoes and it looked
like there could be steep rock. We both figured the summit and a couple spots
on the ridge were probably impossible that day but wanted to walk up the ridge
that connecting Peak 3,600 with Peak 5,260 anyway. It was an astounding view
and one that few if anybody has ever walked and there is no way to really know
if the path is impossible until you see it close up. I am glad we walked it.
The ridge line was faster travel than the previous day. It was not completely
straightforward but with some route-finding we made it to the base of Peak
5,260 by 10:00 AM. Along the way I experienced
a lesson in psychology.
We also saw a mountain goat that approached us clearly having never seen humans. Mountain goats are my spirit animal, if such a thing exists.
The psychology lesson played out thusly. By 6AM I was convinced that we were not going to make it to the base of the summit and certainly not climb it. It seemed like too much vertical rock than we were prepared to deal with. By 8 AM it started to look like we might make it to the base of Peak 5,260 and anxiety set in. My mental status changed with the expectation that the day was going to be a stroll down a ridge, not a challenging peak. Mind didn't change back immediately. I started to feel shitty and started to notice my left knee. It’s always weak. The anxiety and lack of sleep knocked back my endurance. There was interplay between lack of sleep and anxiety and that was psychology lesson. I was dragging like a slug on a sidewalk. Mike did most of the route-finding because I was always dragging up the back. By 9 AM I told Mike that I just wasn’t feeling well about pushing to the summit. Mike suggested that we continue to the base and have a look. This made sense of course.
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| Mike |
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| Mike |
At the base I said I didn’t want to continue but that I would wait for Mike. We are now listed as the first humans to climb Peak 5260 even though I didn’t climb it. Mike did. There was a pitch of fourth class climbing and a climb up a snow field that ended with short scramble to the top. 45 minutes later Mike was back to where I waited.
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Mike had been climbing solo for ten minutes and much of my energy returned. The mountain and lack of sleep had simply psyched my out. I considered climbing the peak solo myself and I regret not listening to my thoughts. There was nothing up there I couldn’t handle. All too often we are unaware of just how much we can accomplish. That’s not only in climbing.
I have some regret at not climbing all the way to summit of Peak 5,260 but not a lot because it was a very cool day indeed. My spirit the goat probably never summits Peak 5,260 and he lives there. We were back to high camp by 2:30 PM. We considered trying to get to the beach that night there wasn’t much impetus. With all that bushwhacking over logs and Devil’s Club and a three hour boat ride, there was not time to make it to Juneau that day. We moved camp downhill for the night but didn’t make it to the beach. We shared the tent and it really wasn’t that bad. We got up at the same time twice during the night to pee and re-inflate our sleeping pads. His leaked too.
We made
it to the beach and the boat by 10 AM morning. While bushwhacking down the
mountain, I somehow caught and tore off the safety mechanism on the bear spray
canister on something and sprayed my hip with bear spray. It stung for a bit
but it wasn’t a full on hit. Thank goodness. We did not see any bears though we saw a fair
amount of bear shit.
We were back in Juneau by 3 PM. I missed a day of work. I probably need to do that more often.
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| View to west of the ridgeline |
