MOUNT Hess is 50 miles due south of home, Fairbanks, and is visible during clear weather. Its unclimbed north ridge runs straight toward us, beckoning our crampons. In May Steve Hackett, Tom Hillis and I set off. Horace Black landed us in his Super-Cub on wheels in a white-out within five miles of the start of the real climbing and six miles of the summit, but still at tundra level. Mount Hess rises rapidly on its north side. We packed up the Gillam Glacier and set up Base Camp at the foot of the northeast ridge, which divides the pocket glacier on the east side of the north ridge. The weather was good, the rock warm and the climbing mixed to the east side glacier.

Shortly before reaching the glacier, gendarmes slowed us enough so that we put in some fixed rope for hauling loads and in case bad weather forced a retreat. While crossing the second gendarme, Tom found an old US ice axe with a ¾-inch hemp rope trailing down the ridge, buried in the ice and wedged in cracks in the rock. Oh, despair! Our new route! But still it was a fine route and so we went down for the tents. The next day I tried to belay not looking at the exposure or avalanches. My eyes lighted on a rusty old tin can, closed with adhesive tape. When I shook it, it rattled. In it were ice lumps (the rattle) and a soggy note. It said, “Sund. May 23, 1949. Height reached by J.C. McCall, K.A. Mitchell, Jan Allen, Tex Marsh, A1 Paige. Stopped by lack of experience and pitons. North wall of cirque looks bad, also bergschrund! Happy climbers, weather excellent.” Who? Some of Alaska’s first resident climbers had been here, but the route, if we proved up to it, would be ours.

The next day in deteriorating weather, we crossed the east side glacier and ascended debatable avalanche snow to the true north ridge and the spot we had picked out with binoculars for a snow cave. This we dug to the tune of rising wind and we competed with the clouds to produce the most flying snow. Storm-bound, we read and figured why the pressure-cooker leaked. To relieve boredom, I measured the sinking rate of the cave roof and found that in three days we would be gobbled up by the snow. We dug a new cave inside the old one.

The weather broke. Tom and Steve took off for the summit. I was only well enough to watch the cave roof descend. Steve and Tom returned with tales of waist-deep snow and the summit. I could believethe summit-part, since I saw 4hem get there; the next day while leading down, I could believe the part about the deep snow. We returned to our tent on the east side glacier and dug it out from three feet of snow. The day after, while we were descending to the Gillam, the storm returned. Our plan of removing the fixed rope was abandoned on the slick, snow-covered, crumbly rock. On our way down the Gillam we played snow plow. Horace Black flew in to pick us up just as we started to count the raisins, dividing them in three.

Summary of Statistics:

Area: Alaska Range.

New Route: Mount Hess, 11,940 feet, via north ridge, May 23, 1976 (Hackett, Hillis).

Personnel: Steven Hackett, Thomas Hillis, Daniel L. Osborne.