Mt. Soggy (7190')
by Dave Hart, Scree 10/95

Beep... Beep... Beep... Beep...  It's still summer, it's pitch dark outside, and my alarm clock is going off at 3:00 a.m.  What in the world is going on?  Oh, that's right.  I'm supposed to meet Niles, Jacques and Kjell at Twin Falls, nine miles up the Eagle River valley trail by 6:30 this morning for a climb of Mt. Soggy.  At least I had the good sense to pack my gear the night before.  After downing a cup of coffee, l was headed north out of town.

I've probably seen more bears on the Eagle River trail than anywhere else in the Chugach Mountains.  Here I was hiking alone at 4:00 a.m. in the dark with my imagination running wild.  Fortunately, the only creatures sharing the trail with me that early morning were a few moose.

Niles, Jacques and Kjell hiked in the night before and camped out, and were half way through breakfast when I arrived about 6:20 a.m.  Half an hour later we bid farewell to the Eagle River trail at the prominent pond (elevation 800 feet) five minutes west of Twin Falls.  An old hunters' trail does a pretty good job of minimizing what would otherwise be a nasty bushwhack up towards Mounts Yukla and Soggy.  Having been on this faint trail last summer while climbing Mount Yukla certainly helped our route finding.

A couple hours later we were strolling up a beautiful high valley (3,500 feet) trying to memorize the location of the prime blueberry patches for our descent.  After a seemingly endless summer of clouds, this crystal clear morning was a rare treat.

We wandered up to the base of the pocket glacier (4700 feet) before changing from our running shoes to plastic boots.  It would have been nice to do the entire climb in comfy running shoes, but the 20-25° bare glacier ice did require crampons.  When we reached the snow covered upper glacier we roped up to safeguard us from unseen crevasses.

A final scree slope above the glacier gave us access to the saddle (6,200 feet) between Mounts Yukla and Soggy.  It was noon, and we could almost see the top of our day's objective about 1 X miles distant.  Scrambling along the ridge was not overly difficult, although the typically loose Chugach rock made us take our time through a few sections.  The final half mile of the summit ridge, although easy, appeared to be partially glaciated so we roped up one last time.  By 2:00 p.m. we were on the summit, enjoying the views.  Marcus Baker and Mount Spurr were on opposite horizons, with the Chugach State Park falling away from us on all sides.  I'm always amazed at what my backyard holds when I do trips like this.

The weather was deteriorating, and by the time we left the summit 30 minutes later, we were in and out of the quickly building clouds.  Our descent was uneventful and included a couple of blueberry munching rest stops before we began picking our way down the faint trail through the final 2,000 feet of brush.

Unfortunately, it began raining about this time.  The combination of brush and rain has an uncanny knack of soaking hikers to the bone much more than the rain alone would have.  With the main Eagle River trail only 100 feet below us, our spirits were lifting; at least the walking would be easier, if not drier.

It was about this time I felt that all too familiar prick of a wasp stinging my leg.  I glanced down, only to confirm that I had indeed just woken a cluster of once napping wasps, who were none too happy to meet my acquaintance.  What happened next seems comical in ret