North America, United States, Alaska, Devil's Thumb and Kate's Needle, Stikine Icecap, Northern Coast Range

Publication Year: 1971.

Devil’s Thumb and Kate’s Needle, Stikine Icecap, Northern Coast Range. The British Columbia Mountaineering Club camp in the Stikine Icecap climbed ten new summits in the region between the Devil’s Thumb and Kate’s Needle and put up new routes on both these peaks. Fred Douglas, Paul Starr and I followed the direct east ridge of the Devil’s Thumb, some 16 leads of which 12 were class 5 on rock and/or ice which took 40 hours of climbing. The saner approach used by Beckey’s party on the Thumb’s previous ascent was not safe because of avalanche hazard, and snow conditions on our ridge were very poor. The rock was steep, but holds were plentiful. There is a lot of climbing left to be done on that peak and its satellites. Kate’s Needle was ascended by Rob Taylor, Mike Feller and Martin and Esther Kafer by the south ridge of its west summit from a high col to the south. They also climbed the c. 8800-foot summit south of the col on the steep snow of the south ridge and P 6222 which rises west of the north arm of Shakes Glacier by its southwest face. Douglas, Starr and I did P 7200, a sharp rock peak west of the head of LeConte Glacier, from the north. We also climbed a peak marked 7100 feet on the map but actually higher, 4½ miles west of Mount Pratt, which we named “Pardoe Peak” after a climber who was to have been with us but died in a fall two weeks before we left. We ascended bad snow on the west ridge, the upper part of which was steep. We also climbed the easy peak 2½ miles southwest of “Pardoe” from the southeast. The Kafers climbed P 7268, 3 miles northwest of Pratt, via the south ridge and southwest face in deep snow until they scrambled on rock at the top and P8307, 6 miles southwest of Kate’s Needle, skiing to the summit. Taylor and Feller ascended P 7200, 1½ miles north of Pratt. They came from the south but difficulties prevented their getting to higher summits farther north. Starr and Douglas started from the north-pointing arm of Shakes Glacier and ascended the long and somewhat difficult 3000-foot face leading to the 5400-foot peak on the south end of the ridge. After bypassing the next two summits to the east, they climbed 1200 feet up a sporting class-5 rock arête to the northwest ridge of Castle Mountain and on to the summit (7329 feet). We approached by air to Shakes Lake, ascended the north-pointing arm of Shakes Glacier and when blocked by an icefall at 3000 feet, crossed the snowfield to the rim of the great LeConte Glacier. We continued on to the Devil’s Thumb by the LeConte, a three-day, 30-mile trip, and to Kate’s Needle by a parallel glacier to the east, both groups mainly on skis.

Richard R. Culbert