At 8,005', Bashful Peak is not only the tallest peak in Chugach State Park, it is the park's only peak over 8,000'. It has long been sought as a ski descent, and has seen attempts by Chugach hardmen such as Zach Schlosar, Aaron Thrasher, Mike Burmeister, and Carl Oswald. This northwest face was first climbed in July 1965 by Art Davidson and Hisazumi Nakamura.

In mid-April, the western Chugach received a series of storms over a six-day period that dropped four inches of water, resulting in an enormous snow load. Our hopes were that the week of high pressure that followed would allow for reasonable stability.

Early on the morning of April 28, my brother-in-law Samuel Holmes Johnson and I began hiking from the Eklutna East Fork Trailhead, after driving the 10.5 miles of dirt road around the reservoir on a borrowed side-by-side. After 2,500' of heavy alders and devils club, we arrived in the basin below the face and began skinning toward our objective. As we skinned up the avalanche debris cone, we found variable but soft conditions. Once in the main couloir, however, things began to firm up. We elected to cache our skins and Verts since crampons seemed ideal. After scrambling a small rock band in the couloir, we exited out climber’s left on to a hanging ramp system.  We connected this to a large snowfield and angled back climber's right to the base of a steep hanging ramp which took us up and left to the summit snowfield. By this time we were wallowing, but amazingly stability was very good. We eventually hit the ridge just to the climber's left of the rocky summit nipple, where we left our skis and scrambled the remaining 15 vertical feet to the tippy top. After a few photos we skied the line, enjoying outstanding deep powder conditions, with massive sloughing being the only real detractor. 

– Ryan Hokanson