Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
ionlyski
Trad climber
Kalispell, Montana
|
![](/images/shim.gif) |
Feb 27, 2016 - 08:56pm PT
|
When Washburn filled out the proposal slip, nominating the name was he choosing an original name or merely wanting to make it official and adopted by the USGS?
Arne
|
|
Phred
Mountain climber
Anchorage
|
![](/images/shim.gif) |
Feb 28, 2016 - 12:55am PT
|
It appears the name Mount Dickey originated with Brad Washburn. The other correspondence on the site linked above included a letter from Washburn indicating that he was the source of the name.
|
|
Phred
Mountain climber
Anchorage
|
![](/images/shim.gif) |
Feb 29, 2016 - 09:09am PT
|
I received an email from Ruedi Homberger in response to my request for additional information. He attempted the east pillar/face of Mount Johnson in 1978 with Yvon Chouinard, Henry Barber, and Paul Muggli. Barber had attempted the same route in 1975 with Jim McCarthy.
Ruedi's team got up 26 pitches and had two bivies. He said that Mugs Stump and an Austrian climber were there at the time and attempted a more direct route than the Barber-Chouinard-Homberger-Muggli team.
He sent several photographs, including one showing their route line. Greg, PM me your email address if you're interested in more information.
|
|
Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
|
![](/images/shim.gif) |
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 29, 2016 - 11:13am PT
|
Done. And thanks for your contributions. Much appreciated.
|
|
Larry Nelson
Social climber
|
![](/images/shim.gif) |
Feb 29, 2016 - 04:57pm PT
|
A bump for the most interesting thread topic on Taco right now
Thanks to all for your great input
|
|
Phred
Mountain climber
Anchorage
|
![](/images/shim.gif) |
Feb 29, 2016 - 05:44pm PT
|
I emailed Nick Parker about his history with Mount Johnson. Here's his reply:
"hello,i did explore the glacial valley below Mt. Johnson. I was not strong enough or skilled for that level of difficulty. I did lead the team of PJ's when we rescued Sweeney and Nyman. I was dispatched by NPS due to knowledge of the terrain they were trapped in. Nick"
|
|
Matt Hale
climber
Alexandria VA
|
![](/images/shim.gif) |
At Dave Roberts' suggestion, I checked out the Cook diary in the Library of Congress. Here are a couple of interesting sketches from the diary - a map of the Ruth Glacier with camps, etc., marked, and a sketch of the peaks in the Ruth Gorge very similar to the photo in Cook's book. The peaks aren't named on the sketch, and the text of the diary (which is hard to read) does not mention the peaks or their naming. So no help there, except to suggest that Cook named them later.
On the first sketch, the numbers above the peaks are presumably compass readings. It's curious that the title of the sketch refers to 6 peaks but there are only 5 shown (unless the writing above the arrow says "small peak" - Cook's writing is pretty bad. Gl is an abbreviation Cook uses for "glacier." I couldn't make heads or tails of the figures on the lower right.
Also, I found the writing on the Ruth Glacier map pretty much indecipherable, but maybe people who know the area can figure it out. (You can see dates indicating camps.)
|
|
David Roberts
Mountain climber
Watertown, MA
|
![](/images/shim.gif) |
Matt--
This is great stuff, no matter how cryptic. I don't think the sketches (or the diary) have ever been published before. Washburn and Cherici show no signs of having seen the diary in DISHONORABLE. If this was the blueprint for TO THE TOP OF THE CONTINENT, it would be revealing to compare the diary to the book.
Steve and Mark and others, can you make anything out of these sketches? Can we match the peaks to Church through Bradley? And if the numbers are compass bearings, can we figure out where Cook stood when he made the sketch?
Matt, keep trying to transcribe the diary. As you can see from the map, the crucial days are September 10 and after. By September 22, Cook and Barrill were back at Susitna Station. (Pretty fast ascent even for today's hard men!)
Why have none of the "scholars" bothered to look at the diary?
Any of you out there who are paleographic experts? (Paleography = Old writing.)
--David
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
![](/images/shim.gif) |
can we figure out where Cook stood when he made the sketch?
Probably within a few hundred meters or so given that the bearings are halfway accurate.
|
|
Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
|
![](/images/shim.gif) |
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 2, 2016 - 11:29am PT
|
Matt! Love it. Very interesting to see Cook's originals. And yes, if he was taking accurate bearings, reciprocal bearing lines from the summits should intersect where Cook was standing.
Thanks for making the effort to check.
|
|
MarkWestman
Trad climber
Talkeetna, Alaska
|
![](/images/shim.gif) |
Further up this thread, I linked to a PDF from a DIOI website- somewhere in there, these same sketches appeared, and there was a definitive notation in the text mentioning that the numbers above the peaks corresponded to the compass bearings Cook was using while doing his mapping. I believe that it even mentions that these readings were taken from near the head the glacier north of Glacier Point which is today known as "Glacier #1. This area is far from the "Fake Peak". And these bearings would make sense, basically due west from the head of Glacier #1 you are looking right at the lower Gorge peaks.
|
|
MarkWestman
Trad climber
Talkeetna, Alaska
|
![](/images/shim.gif) |
Page 28 of 33:
The sketch with compass bearings above is posted with this caption:
Figure 30: Page 56 of Cook's 1906 diary, showing a sketch of the peaks (Mt. Church, Mt.
Grosvenor, etc, along the western edge of the Great Gorge. (See Fig.1&z7 fn 33.) Numbers
on the peaks are Cook's measured compass bearings. The notation obs from amp th
suggests that (at least part of) the drawing was made from the Fake Peak amphitheatre.
However, the raw bearingdata indicate that they were observed south of Glacier Point.
(See fn 26.)
|
|
MarkWestman
Trad climber
Talkeetna, Alaska
|
![](/images/shim.gif) |
http://www.dioi.org/vols/w73.pdf
For the second sketch Matt posted, it's also on page 13 of 33, this is the caption:
Figure 12: Page 44 from Cook's Mount McKinley Diary, 1906, published here for the rst
time. (See z9 xF2[e].) Note the word Lake at rule [14]. The tiny circles with radiating
lines may indicate several positions from which photos were taken. The corresponding
photographs are indicated (by pagesopposite in Top of the Continent) at the righthand
margin of the gure. All of Cook's various written notations are transcribed as they fall
above the rules on the page, left to right, as follows: [1] Ruth gl. [2] McK.; 12. [3] 10;
11. [4] 9; slate Black Pinnacles; N gl. [5] low table top. [6] 13000; shield; 14000. [7] 8
Peaks [written vertically]; 5; 12000. [8] yellow peaks; quartz; 26; 1000. [9] yellow peaks.
[10] Cerac. [11] 26; slate; passes into Fidele gl. [12] 16; camp; cr.; granite. [13] Little Mc
[written vertically]; 15 miles from Boat. [14] 11mi; Lake; 5000. [15] 6000. [17] 3 1/2 mi.
[18] cerac; cr. [19] Tokoshit; 5; 6000. [21] gl. face. [22] 5 mi; Sept 10.
|
|
Phred
Mountain climber
Anchorage
|
![](/images/shim.gif) |
I don't think the numbers are compass bearings. If they were, the sight point would have to be quite a distance to the east, beyond the toe of the Eldridge Glacier. And Cook wasn't anywhere near there in 1906.
|
|
MarkWestman
Trad climber
Talkeetna, Alaska
|
![](/images/shim.gif) |
If he was in the Fake Peak Amp, that's a couple miles to the east. Looking at a topo map of the area, it doesn't seem unreasonable- his bearings are about 6 degrees apart from Church to Bradley.
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
![](/images/shim.gif) |
Just using the two left hand peaks, with Mt Church being the furthest left
works thusly...
|
|
Phred
Mountain climber
Anchorage
|
![](/images/shim.gif) |
Let's say he took a sighting from the Fake Peak area. The sighting (true north) to Mount Bradley from Fake Peak is 281.3 degrees . The (true north) sighting to Mount Church from the same location is 252.3 degrees. That's a difference of 29 degrees. I don't see how any location in the Fake Peak Glacier area could get close to only a 6-degree spread between the two peaks.
|
|
Phred
Mountain climber
Anchorage
|
![](/images/shim.gif) |
Reilly, I don't think I follow how you drew those lines. The angle between them doesn't seem to be close to 3.5 degrees. 270 degrees is due west, so 263.5 degrees would be slightly south of due west. But let's say Cook merely reported the readings based on magnetic north. I don't know what the declination was back in 1906, but it was about 27 degrees east of north in 1952. If that were the case, a reading of 243 degrees would equate to due west. Yet your line for 260 degrees is drawn south of due west.
And you also skipped over Mount Grosvenor, which would have been the second peak from the left.
|
|
MarkWestman
Trad climber
Talkeetna, Alaska
|
![](/images/shim.gif) |
I'm not sure where the DIOI article gets the confirmation that caused them to state that the numbers were bearings, but maybe Cook was just a really bad surveyor too? :)
|
|
Phred
Mountain climber
Anchorage
|
![](/images/shim.gif) |
I thought that perhaps the numbers in his journal correlated to photograph numbers, but that would just be a guess on my part.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|