From 2002. Mt Bona and Mt Churchill summit, Wrangell St. Elias range

Saturday, June 19, 2021

From 2002. Mt Bona and Mt Churchill summit, Wrangell St. Elias range

Reaching way back here. I'm just trying to document some older trips before they disappear completely from memory.

This trip occurred in 2002. We were a team of 3. Myself, Randy and Randy's friend, a french guy who's name I don't remember. We flew in to the Klutlan Glacier in late May with Paul Klaus of Ultima Thule, and set off on what was basically a non-technical route to the high saddle between Mt Bona and Churchill. Route finding was intricate through the crevasse fields though and Randy who was tied in to the middle position on the rope took a significant crevasse fall on I think day 2. Between me in the front and the French guy in the rear we easily held his fall but he still went in approx 20 ft. We both set solid anchors on our respective sides of the crevasse and Randy was able to self rescue. After a couple days we reached the saddle and set up a basecamp. We also came across an ice coring expedition sponsored by the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center led by Lonnie Thompson. We visited the coring tent several times during our stay up there.

Mt Churchill at 15,638 ft. was the first summit we climbed. A short 50 degree ice slope was the only thing that even resembled technical climbing but it was easily overcome. The ridge traverse to the summit was really the climbing highlight of the trip. We summited Mt Bona at 16,421 late in the evening around 9pm on June 4th. Fantastic views with perfect weather and almost no wind! We swung by the coring tent in the morning to say our farewells and made an uneventful descent to the glacier landing basin where we were picked up by Paul I think that evening? He landed us at Ultima Thule and I think we stayed the night before hopping back over to Chitina the following morning. All together I think we were 10 days car to car from the Chitina airport.