Deborah, Hayes, Hess and Other Peaks, Central Alaska Range. In April and May an Alaska Alpine Club sponsored group did some extensive climbing in the central Alaska Range. On April 14 Carl Tobin, Cliff Moore, Peter Hollis and I were flown to the Yanert Glacier by Horace Black. We proceeded through the two icefalls on Mount Deborah’s western side and established a snow-cave camp at 9000 feet, following to here essentially Beckey’s 1954 first-ascent route. From there we fixed 1400 feet of rope on a blue-ice gully which reaches the northwest ridge at 10,500 feet. Another 200 feet were used on a band of rock between this point of the ridge and the 11,000-foot confluence with the more northerly ridge leading out of the Gillam Glacier. Here we joined Nolting’s 1976 route. A camp was established at 11,000 feet and from there Moore, Hollis and Tobin reached Deborah’s summit (12,339 feet) on May 8 with no further assistance from fixed ropes (including those left by a previous group). This was a partly new route. Meanwhile the second half of the expedition, my wife Nancy Brady, Dave Buchannon and Toby Wheeler, had come in from Isabel Pass by dog sled and skis via the Black Rapids and Susitna glaciers. Also on May 8, having climbed the south ridge, Wheeler and Buchannon stood on the summit of Mount Hayes while Nancy bivouacked at 12,500 feet on the south shoulder. After descending Deborah and pulling off our fixed lines, we traversed around to the Gillam Glacier, where at the base of Mount Hess our two groups joined. After a five-day wind storm we moved our camp up to 7700 feet in the high basin on the northern side of Mount Hess (11,940 feet). From here we split into two groups. Buchannon, Tobin and Moore climbed the more ambitious and previously unclimbed northeast ridge, descending the northwest ridge, which Hollis, Wheeler and I climbed. After Mount Hess, Buchannon and Hollis climbed by its west ridge P 9448, a beautifully symmetrical peak four miles up the Gillam from our Base Camp. Wheeler, Nancy and I proceeded up an extinct branch of the Gillam, where out of the same camp at 8600 feet we climbed Mounts Giddings (10,100 feet), Skarland (10,300 feet) and Geist (10,720 feet) on three consecutive days. We all hiked out to Healy in early July.

James A. Brady, Alaska Alpine Club