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MarkWestman
Trad climber
Talkeetna, Alaska
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Feb 25, 2016 - 12:20pm PT
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Steve is busy today but says he'll read through and respond as soon as he can. If anyone knows, Steve will!
Did Ms. Kissel know who Wake is?
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 25, 2016 - 12:21pm PT
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I overlooked Wake. He's not mentioned in her email.
I'll check back.
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 25, 2016 - 12:34pm PT
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Here's a little bit more on Mr. Bradley, from p145 of Charles Officer and Jake Page's book A Fabulous Kingdom: The Exploration of the Arctic.
And more about his estate in the 8/25/1946 issue of The Chicago Trib.
You can even take a 1906 tour of the casino John R. Bradley owned with his brother, Colonel Edward R. Bradley, the one which presumably funded Cook in 1907.
And a little more on "Gambler Jim," a "crackerjack faro dealer," from p180 of Bruce Henderson's True North.
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David Roberts
Mountain climber
Watertown, MA
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Feb 25, 2016 - 03:18pm PT
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Thanks to Eric at AAC and Mark Westman. Eager to hear from Steve Gruhn.
Beckey's account of sponsors is less accurate than Brad and Cherici, in DISHONORABLE. According to them, Harper and Bros. advanced $1,000 (Cook claimed $25,000!). Herschel Parker donated $2,000. Disston pledged $10,000, but never paid after he bailed from the hunting trip.
Cook was so deeply in debt after the 1906 expedition that he never paid Barrill his promised wages, or Russell Porter or Fred Printz (helpers in the field). A scoundrel from the start. Bradley saved Cook's ass.
Cook was so broke most of his sad life partly because he squandered money on frills (trips for his wife, etc.) Never gave good accounting of his expenses.
Who are Johnson and Wake? Onward, sleuths!
--David Roberts
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Dolomite
climber
Anchorage
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Feb 25, 2016 - 03:36pm PT
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Okay, fellas: who the heck was Kudlich? Someone whose name so much did not roll off the tongue that we all went back to 11,300?
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Phred
Mountain climber
Anchorage
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Feb 26, 2016 - 02:04am PT
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OK, I finally have a chance to chime in. Mark Westman suggested that I take a look at this thread and respond. I’ll try to go comment-by-comment so I don’t miss anything. I apologize if this gets redundant, long-winded, or comes across as sort of a stream of consciousness.
In 1975 Tom Davies, Jon Krakauer, and Nate Zinsser had their eyes set on Mount Johnson, but backed off after skiing down to take a look at it. They went on to make the first ascents of “Ham and Eggs” on The Mooses Tooth and Mount Cosmic Debris.
Gary Bocarde’s partners on the May 1979 first ascent of Mount Johnson were Charlie Head, John Lee, and Jon Thomas.
It’s Ruedi Homberger, not Rudi Hommburger.
Page 243 of the 1982 Alpine Journal indicated that Milward and Young attempted the east ridge of Mount Johnson in the summer of 1981, but got shut down due to weather. http://www.alpinejournal.org.uk/Contents/Contents_1982_files/AJ%201982%20238-244%20MEF%20Notes.pdf
According to Hannes Arch’s report on pages 158 and 160 of the 1991 AAJ, Helmut Neswadba and he attempted the east buttress (aka the east ridge), not the north face, of Mount Johnson in July 1990.
According to Doug Chabot’s article on page 71 of the 1996 AAJ, Kim Miller attempted the Elevator Shaft with Jack Tackle in 1993. In 1994 Tackle returned with Bill Belcourt, but objective hazards prevented them from really starting the Elevator Shaft.
I don’t know the names of Barber’s and Chouinard’s two partners in 1972 when they made their second attempt on the east buttress.
According to Bruno Hasler’s report on page 203 of the 2004 AAJ, Iwan Wolf, Urs Stocker, Markus Stofer, and he had to abandon their plan of attempting the east ridge of Mount Johnson due to high avalanche danger.
Louis-Philippe Menard and Maxime Turgeon made the second ascent of “The Escalator” in May 2005. See Turgeon’s article on page 79 of the 2006 AAJ.
I think Todd’s surname is Tumolo, not Tumalo.
Eamonn Walsh and Mark Westman made the third ascent of “The Escalator” in April 2006. See Westman’s report on pages 165 through 167 of the 2007 AAJ.
On April 20 and 21, 2013, Peter Doucette and Silas Rossi made the first ascent of “Twisted Stair,” which ascends a sub-peak of Mount Johnson. See Doucette’s report on pages 153 and 154 of the 2014 AAJ.
There may well have been other attempts on Mount Johnson. I don’t have the following journals at my fingertips, but my notes indicate that it might be worth checking them for records of attempts on Mount Johnson: January/February 1980 Mountain (Issue No. 71, page 15), May/June 1980 Climbing (Issue No. 6, page 3), August/September 1989 Climbing (Issue No. 115, page 20), August/September 1992 Climbing (Issue No. 133, page 44), February/March 1993 Climbing (Issue No. 136, pages 78, 79, and 135), November/December 1995 Climbing (Issue No. 156, page 38), June 1996 High Mountain Sports (Issue No. 163, page 26), December 1998 Climbing (Issue No. 181, pages 64, 67, and 70), September 2000 Climbing (Issue No. 197, page 64), December 2000 High Mountain Sports (Issue No. 217, page 76), January 2001 High Mountain Sports (Issue No. 218, page 70), March 2002 Climbing (Issue No. 210, page 68), April 2002 High Mountain Sports (Issue No. 233, page 66), September 2002 Climbing (Issue No. 217, page L12), Autumn 2004 Alpinist (Issue No. 8, page 96), Winter 2006 Alpinist (Issue No. 14, page 86), Spring 2006 Alpinist (Issue No. 15, page 40), Autumn 2006 Alpinist (Issue No. 17, page 82), Spring 2007 Alpinist (Issue No. 19, page 96), and September 2007 Climbing (Issue No. 260, page 52).
Frederick Cook named Mounts Church, Grosvenor, Johnson, Wake, Bradley, and Barrille. The names appear in his 1908 book To the Top of the Continent.
I disagree with Mark that Mounts Barrille and Dickey are the only two officially named peaks. The name Mount Church also appears on the USGS map.
Mount Dickey was named after William A. Dickey, a prospector in the region and the fellow who renamed Denali Mount McKinley in 1896. I concur that Mount Grosvenor was named after Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor, who edited the National Geographic Magazine at the time of Cook’s 1906 expedition.
Mount Barrille was named after Ed Barrill (note the misspelling of the peak’s name), who was Dr. Cook’s partner. The official name is Mount Barrille, despite Ed’s surname and the Washburn map’s name for the peak lacking the final E.
I do have a copy of Orth’s Dictionary of Alaska Place Names. It is, indeed, a great resource, but there are some occasional errors. Mount Dickey, for example, wasn’t named by Dora Keen in 1914, because the name was already in use by Cook in 1908. Incidentally, Dora Keen made the ascent of the East Peak of Mount Blackburn in 1912 with George Handy who would later become her husband (the marriage ultimately ended in divorce). The Dora Keen Range in the Chugach Mountains is named in her honor.
Cook’s party reached the Ruth Gorge by taking a boat up the Susitna and Tokositna Rivers and then walking up the Ruth Glacier. The entire process took months.
The name Mount Snowbonnet was originally applied by Belmore Browne to Broken Tooth, which has a large snowfield near the summit, not Bear’s Tooth.
Yes, I am, indeed, responsible for the name Mount Kudlich showing up on Google Earth, but unknowingly. I was contacted several years ago by a fellow (I think it might have been Aaron Maizlish, but I’m not certain of his name after so many years) who had heard that I’d been compiling records of peaks in Alaska. I kindly emailed him what I had and thought nothing of it. Later I found out that he had turned around and provided that information to Google Earth without my knowledge or consent. I pointed out some errors in my original data (Mount Benkin is incorrectly located, for example) and requested that he fix it. He claimed that he contacted Google Earth to fix it, but that they were unresponsive. Lesson learned. Mea culpa.
Mount Kudlich was likely named by Belmore Browne in honor of H.C. Kudlich, who, like Browne, was a member of the American Museum of Natural History. Kudlich was also New York City’s City Magistrate.
So, after all that, who was Mount Johnson named after? I’m not 100% certain, but my guess is Arva B. Johnson, the president of the Philadelphia Arctic Club. Cook was a founding member of the Arctic Club of America, which later was folded into The Explorers Club.
Mount Wake was likely named after Charles Wake, an insurance salesman and close friend of Dr. Cook. http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1909/12/27/page/4/article/wake-says-cook-duped-him
And lastly, Mark, David, and Greg have put way too much faith in my response, which has not been entirely definitive; I look to you guys as references.
Steve.
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MarkWestman
Trad climber
Talkeetna, Alaska
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Feb 26, 2016 - 03:33am PT
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Steve,
This is incredible info. Thank you for taking the time to put this all down!
And, definitive or not, you're the first and only one who has found, connected to Dr. Cook, the names Charles Wake and Arva B. Johnson, both of which at this point would have to be a mighty large coincidence to not be the ones for whom these peaks are named.
One other question- you mentioned that Cook named all the peaks but you left Dickey out of the list; but then said that Cook was using the name Dickey in To the Top of the Continent. So I'm not clear- was Mount Dickey named by Cook, or by someone else?
Broken Tooth definitely a better name than "Snowbonnet".
Thanks again Steve!
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Bent knee
Ice climber
VT
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Feb 26, 2016 - 05:53am PT
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I seem to remember Nick Parker telling me that he attempted Johnson. I could be completely wrong, long ago I went through a ton of photos with him and he had stories of attempting one line or another on just about every peak in the Ruth.
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 26, 2016 - 06:19am PT
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Thanks for that huge response, Steve. Great stuff.
I can see in To the Top of the Continent that Cook named the peaks Bradley and below, but I can't find a page saying he named Dickey and Barill[e].
Can you point me to the place? Or to other source data.
And I'm delighted to see Wake and Johnson's namesakes likely identified.
But if Cook named Dickey, how come Washburn seems to do the naming in the 1956 AAJ? And for the same guy? That seems too unlikely to be coincidental. Did Washburn know of the existing name, and if so, why didn't he mention it?
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David Roberts
Mountain climber
Watertown, MA
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Feb 26, 2016 - 06:52am PT
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Steve--
Yes, fantastic post. Thanks for all your expertise.
I must repeat from above that it's pretty clear that Washburn named Mt. Dickey. See 1956 AAJ.
Whether Cook had his own names for Dickey and Barrill[e] remains uncertain. The caption to the one photo in To the Top of the Continent clearly labels Mts. Church, Wake, Grosvenor, Johnson, and Bradley. But is there any evidence in the book of names for Dickey and Barrille? I'm not yet convinced that Cook named Barrille.
Could the Mazamas play any part in this? They were racing Belmore Browne up the Ruth in 1910.
Matt Hale is going to go to the Library of Congress next week and have a good look at Cook's diary.
--David Roberts
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 26, 2016 - 07:26am PT
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Some fine and engaging historical sleuthing here folks!
I was going to suggest contacting Beckey as a desperate last measure but it appears that you have your answers.
Welcome David!
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Feb 26, 2016 - 07:44am PT
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'Snowbonnet' works for me, sort of...
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Dolomite
climber
Anchorage
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Feb 26, 2016 - 11:06am PT
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Amazing thread! Thanks everyone, particularly Steve. What are the billable hours on that investigation?! Let's not ignore Jim Sweeney's book on his and Dave Nyman's epic near-disaster. First edition was titled Marine Life Solidarity: an Alaskan Expedition. New edition is called, A Thousand Prayers. Really good stuff.
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Phred
Mountain climber
Anchorage
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Feb 26, 2016 - 06:20pm PT
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I was wr—, I was wr—, I was wr—, I erred.
At 1 a.m., I glanced too quickly at the list of peaks that Cook named on the west side of the Ruth Gorge and didn’t notice that he had left Mount Dickey unnamed. I took that tidbit of misinformation and combined it with Bryce’s assertion on page 67 of http://www.dioi.org/vols/w73.pdf and incorrectly stated that it couldn’t have been named in 1914 because the name was in use in 1908. Thou shallt not conduct research with tired eyes and misfiring synapses.
In the October 1910 Pacific Monthly, Claude E. Rusk mentioned that Cook used the name Mount Barrille. Rusk also pointed out that the name for the peak immediately south of Mount Barrille was mysteriously left unnamed. For those interested in following along, a reprinting of the October 1910 Pacific Monthly appeared in the 1945 Mazama Annual.
As for Mount Dickey, Donald Orth’s Dictionary of Alaska Place Names indicates that Dora Keen named the peak in 1914 for William Andrews Dickey. I don’t know how Keen would have been in a position to apply names to geographic features in the Alaska Range, however. So, I took a little bit of time to do some more digging and found an answer. Bear with me on this, but you can follow along. Go to http://geonames.usgs.gov/apex/f?p=136:3:0::NO:3:P3_FID%2CP3_TITLE:1401190%2CMount+Dickey. Scroll down to “Correspondence” and click the arrow to the right. Now click on the entry labeled AK_1401190_016_Mount Dickey_cor_1976.pdf. This is a letter from Brad Washburn to Donald Orth bringing up the exact same question. Orth had a handwritten note on the letter that indicates he called Washburn and would make the correction that Keen did not name Mount Dickey. Now click on AK_1401190_015_Mount Dickey_cor_1978.pdf. That’s a letter from Washburn to Orth refuting a claim that Cook named Mount Dickey in 1906.
Not to nitpick Brad Washburn’s treatise in the 1956 AAJ, but I think he misstated the first ascent of Mount Barrille. Washburn claimed that it was by the Mazamas expedition. However, Claude Rusk’s report in the October 1910 Pacific Monthly indicated that the team reached only the northernmost point of rock on Mount Barrille, which they reached for the purposes of taking photos of Denali. Rusk called this point of rock Point Piper (and elsewhere as Point Pipe). Rusk also knew of the name Mount Barrille because he used that name in the same article. An August 14, 1910, article in the Oregonian also stated that Claude Rusk and Joseph Ridley climbed the northernmost point of rock and gave it the name Point Piper. Mark Westman and I combed over Rusk’s report a few years ago and came to the conclusion that Rusk and Ridley did not reach the summit of Mount Barrille and thus Washburn’s statement in the 1956 AAJ was in error. For the record, I believe the first recorded ascent of Mount Barrille was made on July 20, 1957, by Fred Beckey and John Rupley. A brief report on page 92 of the 1958 AAJ mentions others in the Beckey-Rupley party, but according to Greg Slayden, who recently interviewed Beckey and reviewed his diary, Wes Grande, Tom Hornbein, and Herb Staley did not participate in the Mount Barrille climb, although they were on the expedition with Beckey and Rupley.
Sorry to have created confusion with my earlier post. And I apologize for being so darned long-winded, too.
Steve.
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Feb 26, 2016 - 07:28pm PT
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I have the reprint of "To the Top..." done by the Cook Society. There's selections of Cooks and Barrill's diaries. I didn't see much of value pertaining to this thread. Mentions that the original of Barrill's diary is missing.
There's a sketch on page 56 of Cook's dairy which shows an outline of the peaks on the west side of the Ruth, but, they're numbered and not named. Shows five peaks numbered.
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MarkWestman
Trad climber
Talkeetna, Alaska
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Feb 26, 2016 - 08:39pm PT
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Thanks Steve! Excellent work as usual.
So...to sum up, it sounds as though for some perplexing reason Cook did not name what is now called Mount Dickey and possibly gave it no name at all that we know of, and it was Bradford Washburn who named it in 1956?
As I recall, Steve, we decided that "Pipe Point" was likely either Pt. 6000, the little granite point just north of Barrille, or possibly even the tiny pimple just north of that which is known as "Mischka's Bump"- Mischka being the celebrated Japanese photographer who was killed in Siberia by a bear. Japanese kids come to the Ruth every year to scramble up it in his honor (Mischka was his nickname, and I can't remember his given name; he was famous for his glorious aurora and mountain photos taken in Alaska). This bump is also the bump which Sarah Palin groveled up on top rope for her travesty of a show, and which was advertised on there as "Denali's Toughest Mountain" (Edit: LOL).
Here's pt. 6000' and what I think was Pipe point on the extreme right edge of the image. Pipe Pt. is a walk up from the other side with a 50', 50 degree rock slab as the only climbing. Pt. 6000' is much easier from the other side also, but is a lot steeper and somewhat technical, which makes me doubt that the Mazamas climbed it in 1910 with primitive gear and tech skill.
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MarkWestman
Trad climber
Talkeetna, Alaska
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Feb 26, 2016 - 08:48pm PT
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I seem to remember Nick Parker telling me that he attempted Johnson.
I don't know him, but I recognize that name. I have Nick Parker as being one of the first ascentionists of Mount Wake, along with Gary Bocarde, and Paul Denkewalter, in February of 1979.
Bocarde made the FA's of Church (June, 1978), Grosvenor, Johnson (both May, 1979) and Wake in the winter of 1979. He reported that he didn't climb Bradley on these trips because he thought it had already been climbed. However, the earliest reported ascent of it that I can find is by Andi Orgler and Sepp Jochler, on July 4, 1987, via the east buttress.
One of the first ascentionists of Church- Grant Henke, and another young climber (forget the name), died in an avalanche on the south face of Mount Dan Beard in 1980.
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Feb 26, 2016 - 11:18pm PT
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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.
Also mentions naming Mount Hubbard (General Thomas H. Hubbard, president of the Peary Arctic Club) and Professor Huntington, president of the American Geographical Society, for "the highest peak on the eastern edge of the Big Basin".
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."
No mention of the peaks on the west side of the Ruth Glacier. Map included is a beauty, though.
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pn
Trad climber
Portland, OR
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Feb 27, 2016 - 01:56am PT
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In regard to the original question, I believe Lyle Dean spent some time with Mugs in the area. Not sure what they did but he may have more information on the subject.
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Phred
Mountain climber
Anchorage
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Feb 27, 2016 - 02:12pm PT
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Michio Hoshino was the Japanese photographer killed by a bear on the Kamchatka Peninsula.
The first ascent of Mount Church was in 1977 by Gary Bocarde, Grant Henke, Stacy Taniguchi, and Dick Wheaton.
Washburn proposed the name "Mount Dickey" in 1955 (there's a copy of his original proposal at the link I posted above), but it didn't become official until 1960.
Dave Kempfer was Grant Hanke's partner on Mount Dan Beard when both of them perished due to a cornice collapse. http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/13198102001/Cornice-Collapse-Bad-Weather-Alaska-Mt-Dan-Beard
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