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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 6, 2016 - 05:19pm PT
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Dougald at the AAJ has given us the go-ahead, suggesting that since we have missed the 2016 deadline, we might do best having it put online and referenced in the 2017 journal.
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David Roberts
Mountain climber
Watertown, MA
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Greg--
It's only right that you write this up, as the initiator of the thread. I'm happy to read it and put in my 2 cents' worth.
Brian--
Thanks for pointing out what lay under all our noses--the photo of Mt. Barrill[e] in TOP OF THE CONTINENT with Cook's caption. So obviously he named it.
The fact that he spells the horsepacker's name as "Brill" in the diary only adds to the argument that the naming came later, only when he saw which photos were going to be published. (I. e., he somehow checked with the guy and at least came closer to spelling his name right.) If the naming of Church through Bradley was inspired by the effort to cozy up to potential sponsors, the naming of Barrille may have been a last-ditch attempt to mollify the partner who had already (in his "affidavit") blown Cook's cover.
Incidentally, Cook DID publish a photo of Mt. Dickey, but captioned it "The Middle Northeast Slopes--Where Avalanches Tumble from Slopes Unseen to Depths Unknown." See DISHONORABLE, pp. 138-39.
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Phred
Mountain climber
Anchorage
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"Steve, I've been curious to ask about the mountain of data you've amassed....
How do you have it organized and indexed, and since a lot of it probably predates the digital age, how do you have it stored?"
Well, the mountain is more like filing cabinets and bookshelves of notes, journals, maps, books, magazines, and emails. It's one fire (or fed-up wife) away from disappearing forever. I have some of the data in an electronic format and have been making strides (OK, baby steps) toward getting the information in an online format that could be viewed by clicking on an icon on a map.
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Phred
Mountain climber
Anchorage
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I was able to locate a copy of The Arctic Diary of Russell Williams Porter. Here's the pertinent information, taking up with Porter meeting Cook at Susitna Station after returning from the Alaska Range in 1906.
"In three days we were at Susitna Station. Scarcely had we arrived before a commotion down by the shore brought us to the river's bank.
"There was the Bolshoy, with Dr. Cook at the stern and Barrill the packer just stepping ashore.
"Go back and congratulate the doctor," he said as I reached the boat.
"How so?"
"He got to the top."
"Well, so it seemed. They described a hair-raising dash to the very summit. Following the Tokichitna [Tokositna] Glacier they had climbed the northeast spur, digging into the very face of vertical ice walls when night overtook them. The account was all very thrilling, and at that time I believe it was accepted as truth by everyone in the party.
"I returned east with the doctor and helped illustrate (from verbal descriptions) the book he was preparing. (Sometime during the Cook-Peary controversy, I ran across a statement in the paper that Barrill had denied having reached the summit, that the events pictured in Cook's volume To the Top of the Continent never happened, that they were figments of the doctor's imagination.)9 I worked up the field notes of the trip, which were afterwards incorporated in the maps of the Geological Survey.10
"But evidently doubts began to assail some of the party, for soon Browne and Parker were back in Alaska following up the doctor's trail over the Tokichitna Glacier.11 They later published a photograph of a mountain summit said to be several miles from McKinley's peak and but five or six thousand feet elevation, which to all appearances is identical with the peak shown in the doctor's book and labeled "The Top of the Continent." I have the two photographs before me now, and the one by Browne and Parker certainly looks like damaging evidence. For, while the snowbanks are unlike, as might be expected with an interval of some year's time, the topographical features are alike in every detail.
"9 To the Top of the Continent: Discovery, Exp0loration, and Adventure in Sub-Arctic Alaska, the First Ascent of Mt. McKinley (New York, 1908). The frontispiece of this book is a color-plate reproduction of Porter's beautiful watercolor entitled "Mt. McKinley, 20,390 feet, Highest Mountain in North America" with the note "from a painting by Russell W. Porter." This watercolor is with the Porter Papers. The only other reference to Porter in Cook's book is in the title of the miner's map of the Mount McKinley region, between pp. 152 and 153, which states simply "by the Topographer of the Cook-Mt. McKinley Expedition, 1907." Problems arose between Cook and Porter when Porter requested payment for the map and various illustrations. This correspondence is also with the Porter Papers.
"10 A search of the records of the U.S. Geological Survey, Record Group 57, in the National Archives has failed to disclose the existence of Porter's field notes and planetable work. In 1909 Peary corresponded with the U.S. Geological Survey and with Porter concerning these field notes and Porter's topographic map of the Mount McKinley region. Porter obtained a published copy of the map and annotated it with various lines to indicate routes that he, Cook, and others traveled. This map and the correspondence are among the Peary Papers, RG 401 (1A).
"11 See Belmore Browne and Herschel C. Parker, The Conquest of Mount McKinley: The Story of Three Expeditions through the Alaskan Wilderness to Mount McKinley, North America's Highest and Most Inaccessible Mountain (New York, 1913)."
Porter's book includes a map titled "Cook Mt McKinley Expedition 1906" that has a route drawn on it. Interestingly, the route does not reach the Ruth Glacier and shows the route from Yentna Station heading up the "Tokichitna" Glacier (which appears to be what is now known as the Tokositna Glacier. The route then travels to the ridge between that glacier and the unlabeled glacier now known as the Ruth Glacier. The farthest north point shown on the route was on that ridge and is somewhere between the isthmus between the two glaciers and what is now known as Backside Glacier.
Also of interest is Porter's sketch labeled "Mount McKinley looking north, as seen from the ridge between the Tokichitna and Tococha glaciers." It appears that Porter's Tococha Glacier is now known as the Ruth Glacier.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Outside the Asylum
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A fascinating discussion - thanks to all who have contributed.
There sure are a lot of things in North America named for the undeserving.
Brian in SLC commented:
Combing through Browne's Conquest of Mount McKinley. He makes a few interesting comments about some of the place names. Said he chatted with W.A. Dickey and asked him why he named the mountain McKinley. Apparent retaliation for spending too much time in the company of prospectors "who were rapid champions of free silver." Named it after the champion of the gold standard.
Perhaps something should be named for William Jennings Bryan, then, the great populist, perennial presidential candidate, and champion of a silver-based currency (see "cross of gold" speech. Before his squabble with Darrow (see Scopes), that is.
The main southern buttress of McKinley named for Daniel Carter Beard, "father of the world-celebrated Boy Scout movement, and a man who has endeared himself to every American man and boy through the pages of The American Boy's Handy Book."
Lord Baden-Powell is usually credited with founding the scouting movement, although Beard may have brought it to the USA.
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Phred
Mountain climber
Anchorage
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Also, in answer to Greg's original question, Christophe Moulin, Mathieu Rideau, Antoine Rolle, and Steve Thibout put up a route on a sub-peak on the southeast ridge of Mount Johnson. They called this sub-peak Little John and they named their route "It's not Good to be Dead." Reports of their climb will appear in the upcoming 2017 American Alpine Journal and the May 2017 Scree.
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