The Johns Hopkins Glacier is one of the major glaciers of the west arm of Glacier Bay, southeast Alaska, and is surrounded by major summits of the Fairweather Range, from Mt. Quincy Adams in the north to Mt. Crillon in the south. Thanks to the local knowledge and enthusiasm of our ski-plane pilot, Paul Swanstrom, in April Guy McKinnon and I became the first climbing party to access this glacier. The price was an inconvenient 2,000' descent, from the landing site on the west shoulder of Mt. Abbe to the 2,000' contour on the south arm of the glacier. A number of earlier parties had been thwarted by the broken tidewater area and, from the south and east, by crevasse-strewn cols. The only previous climbs even overlooking the Hopkins Glacier appear to be those in the Mt. Abbe group by the 1977 Wickwire party. (The 1991 Gove-Pilling ascent of Mt. Abbe was on the north side, accessed from the inlet via a side glacier and overlooking Hopkins Inlet.)

Our aerial reconnaissance showed problems with icefalls and seracs on the approach and descent from our original objective, the long-coveted north ridge of Mt. Crillon. Instead, we took advantage of the stable forecast to tackle the unclimbed northwest ridge of Mt. Bertha (10,200'). Bradford Washburn’s 1940 party was the first to climb Mt. Bertha, and the mountain had since received three more ascents, all from the Brady Glacier to the east. Four miles long and rising 7,100' from the glacier, the undulating northwest ridge turned into a trial of stamina as we successively encountered unconsolidated winter powder, breakable melt-freeze crust, and compressible wind deposits. Long sections of ridge also featured typically exposed southeast Alaskan cornices. We reached the summit on our fourth climbing day, April 26, enjoying panoramic views from the expansive Brady Ice Cap to the mixed alpine faces of the Mt. Fairweather group. Our descent was rapid, down the same ridge.

After two days refueling our bodies at base camp, with continued good weather we tackled the striking unclimbed 8,599' peak that lies north of Mt. Crillon and east of Mt. Orville. Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, we propose the unofficial name “Fifty Years of Alaskan Statehood” for this peak, following an old Russian naming tradition. Taking the only amenable line we could see, we waded up isothermic snow on the shallow east rib. We stopped early at our second camp, at 7,560' in the bowl below the upper south face, and spent the day watching avalanches let loose on the face. Early on May 2 we crossed the bergschrund above the bowl and continued up the south face via a couloir and snowed-up rock rib to reach the summit in pre-dawn light. We left a three-foot trench as we descended the lower east rib through wet snow that was close to sliding.

With the sea-level pressure falling rapidly, we flew out on May 5, before bad weather set in. The next day, Juneau reverted from record high temperatures to cold, wet, and windy.

Paul Knott, New Zealand

Previous Attempts to Access the Johns Hopkins Glacier

The Johns Hopkins Glacier is well guarded and until 2009 repelled climbers’ attempts at access. Nor have I found evidence of research parties accessing the glacier, despite active programs involving landings in Johns Hopkins Inlet.

The glacier becomes extremely broken below 1,000?, effectively preventing access from the sea, except apparently by bears. The 1977 party of James Wickwire, Alan Givler, Dusan Jagersky, and Steve Marts turned back from such an attempt, instead landing farther east at Reid Inlet, which accesses the Brady ice plateau. From here they tried to access the Johns Hopkins via a col between Mt. Abbe and Mt. Bertha. Due to crevassing, they could not reach the main glacier but instead climbed from the hanging glacier on the Hopkins side of Mt. Abbe. Similarly, a 1983 trip by James and Kevin Haberl, Peter Mair, and Bruce Blackwell found no safe landing in Johns Hopkins Inlet and found an impassable icefall blocking access through a col between Mt. Abbe and Mt. Bertha. The nearest kayak landing to the Johns Hopkins appears to be the Gillman Glacier access that Walter Gove and Bill Pilling used for their 1991 ascent of Mt. Abbe, but this does not provide a route to the main glacier. Again, in April 2007 Steve Graepel, Gabe Rogel, and Jason Kraus proposed to access the north ridge of Mt. Crillon via a kayak landing and the Johns Hopkins Glacier. Linking our own access route to the glacier from the west shoulder of Mt. Abbe with the 1977 route from the Reid Inlet to the southwest side of Mt. Abbe could be the key to such a venture, after a good winter snowfall.

Given that helicopter access is not permitted, the obvious access choice is by ski plane. Unfortunately, the potential for this is limited, as the upper névés are very broken, and the lower glacier undulates and is prone to melting out. Luckily for us, Paul Swanstrom flies here regularly and had scoped out the possibility of landing on the west shoulder of Mt. Abbe. —Paul Knott, New Zealand