Rumble
by Pete Murphy, Scree

Three of us started on a very wet Saturday, July 7, from Prudhoe Bay Road.  Tony Degane was there to traverse from Ram Valley to Peters Creek, while Steve Johnson and I had grand plans of traversing Mt. Rumble (7530') by the north couloir and then down Hoeman's Gully and then to climb East Kiliak and possibly Korohusk.

We camped at the base of Rumble with great views of Benign and the Raisin Glacier.  That evening we were treated to aerobatic displays of two golden eagles and a gyrfalcon, swooping down on each other, and if that wasn't enough we saw a mountain goat ambling up the slopes from the creek.  As far as we know, there has not been a previously reported sighting of one in this drainage.

On Sunday we awoke to light rain, but things started looking more hopeful, so we hastily packed up, bid Tony farewell and started towards the gully.  Light clouds still shrouded the upper part of the mountain as we reached the glacier at the base of the gully.  Here we put on crampons while my usual fear factor escalated to a slight whine.  Steve looked like Ted Bundy in a women's dorm, so I grit my teeth and started up the steep ice with a lot of fresh rockfall.  We hadn't gotten very far when Steve's right crampon fell off.  With a little effort, he hopped around on one foot on the steep ice next to a crevasse and fixed it.  We zigzagged towards the gully, crossing deteriorating snow bridges.  Our main concern, as we entered the gully, was rockfall; we saw lots of baseball-size rock scattered.  The snow was wet on top and pretty hard about four inches down. Steve led most of the way and I carried the rope.  The going was consistent until about the last 2,000 feet, where we hit rock-hard ice!  I kept brushig away the snow to make sure I wasn't front-pointing rock.  With the ice getting difficult, we headed for the rock, which was typical Chugach Crud.  We did mixed climbing to the summit ridge and had a relatively easy walk to the summit.

We found the register and signed in.  Steve had been up Hoeman's Gully once before, but had left the gully too early and had found that route to be quite spooky.  So we left the summit uncertain as to the route down; fear factor on the rise again.  Somebody was looking out for us, for we found a very straightforward way down into the gully.  While scree-sliding down the 4,000 feet we found a weather balloon transmitter and a 150 foot patch of snow, our only glissade.  What a place if it was full of snow!

We got back to camp at 1:00 a.m.  Later that morning, due to weather and our feet, we decided to head down Peters Creek to a cold beer!  Well, I guess one out of three isn't too bad.