Respect Your Alders

Dome hunting in wild Alaska

July 2007: Kate Rutherford peered out the window of the Cessna 185 as it flew toward Dillingham, in southwest Alaska. For the next month, Rutherford would be working as a fly-fishing guide in Bristol Bay’s remote headwaters. Outside the window, the ragged 5,000-foot peaks of the Wood River Range cut the western skyline, eventually ebbing into gentle tundra, spruce forests, and glacially carved lakes. From this flat, marshy terrain suddenly sprung a cluster of five grey, granite domes, 200 to 600 feet tall. Rutherford’s eyes widened. The pilot, Rick Grant, banked around the largest formation, which abutted Tikchik Lake.

“I’ve been flying here 30 years and haven’t ever heard of anyone climbing them,” he said through the headset. The rock looked clean, split by cracks, and utterly enticing. I’ve got to come back and climb here next summer, Rutherford promised herself.

Friday, June 27, 2008 (Day One): The four of us — Kate, Madaleine Sorkin, Althea Rogers, and I — have arrived at Kate’s “promised land.” As we paddle our inflatable canoes around Tikchik Lake, we behold the dubious treasure: dirty, discontinuous cracks cutting up slabs and faces, and flaring horizontal cracks that pour grass gardens.

Earlier that day, Rick dropped us off on a gravel beach. The drone of the departing plane was quickly replaced by that of mosquitoes. We’re 60 miles northeast of the fishing town of Dillingham (population 2,500), hoping to find quality routes on the five main domes and dozen outlying crags.

Drawn together by a common alma mater, Colorado College, and a taste for adventure, we decided the previous winter to take a trip. That’s when Kate showed us an aerial photo of the Tikchik domes, the most prominent one a clean sweep dropping into Tikchik Lake. “It’s big, remote salmon-fishing country. We’d approach in boats!” Kate exclaimed.

We were sold. Our team would be: Kate, 28, a jewelry maker from Washington; Madaleine, 27, who works for a solar company in Boulder, Colorado; Althea, 24, a recent Colorado College graduate; and me, 28, a ski patroller in Bozeman, Montana. All accomplished climbers, we wanted experience developing new routes. Sitting at 500 feet in a state known for 18,000- and 20,000-foot, storm-lashed giants, Tikchik seemed like a good place to start.

Monday, July 7 (Day 11): Sweat drips down my neck, and mosquitoes struggle in my hair. Althea and I thrash toward a dome about two miles from camp. Kate and Madaleine, meanwhile, occupy a dome closer by, waist-deep in a multi-day cleaning project (two days so far) up a corner. Althea and I left at 1 pm, but just getting to the rock has been a battle through bog, alders, and tussocks — every step in this 3-D terrain a veritable walking emergency.

So far, nothing’s been easy: the airline lost Madaleine’s luggage, I spent two days on standby in Anchorage, and while hectically shopping in Seattle and Anchorage, we couldn’t agree on how much food to bring. (We didn’t bring enough chocolate.) Yesterday, our friend and Kate’s boyfriend, Mikey Schaefer, and Kate’s father, Mark, flew in. When they climbed out of Rick’s plane, they wore wigs: Mark had long blond braids, and Mikey a stylish brunette bob. Mark spent the day bushwhacking and scouting with us, and Mikey will stay the rest of the trip.