Mountaineering Club of Alaska. Membership in our organization remained at about 350 members. The club maintained its past tradition of offering hiking and low-key climbing trips to members, mostly during the summer months. Training in the areas of glacier travel, snow-shelter construction, map and compass, and, of course, the annual ice-climbing school in September were also offered. But the real story for the M.C. A. this year was hut construction. With much volunteer effort we were able to upgrade four pre-existing mountain huts and construct two new ones over the Labor Day weekend. One is located near the Bomber Glacier in the Talkeetna Mountains and the other is along the Matanuska Glacier in the Chugach Mountains. These are open to the public and offer excellent skiing and climbing opportunities in the remote areas.

Six members completed the first crossing of the Sargent Icefield in the Kenai Mountains in May. The last attempt to do this was in 1974 (A.A.J., 1975, p. 119). Weather allowed the party to travel from Derickson Bay to Day Harbor in four days but did not allow any ascents of the many peaks on the icefield. Two members went to Nepal to climb Pumori this fall. George Rooney and Geoff Radford were both successful, each on separate expeditions. Two members did a new route and the third ascent of Baleful Peak in June. In July, members made ascents of Greenland Peak, Iceland Peak, Latvia Peak and Finland Peak in the Scandinavian Peaks area of the Chugach Mountains.

Willy Hersman