Ridge Running North of Eklutna Lake
by Jim Kelley, Scree 11/91

Around 8:00 in the morning of Sunday, September 22, the fog over Anchorage burned off to reveal a crystal clear fall day. I did have plans to work on my house, but decided that a day like this dictated hills before hammer, so I headed to Eklutna to hammer some hills.

I decided to traverse the ridges north of Eklutna Lake from the trailhead to Bold Creek valley and back, a rough estimate of the distance being 25 miles. There are nine peaks on this route ranging from 5080 feet to 5745 feet. Six are official peaks, the others are sub-peaks, having less than 500 feet vertical separation. Though these peaks have been climbed for millennia by four-legged mountaineers, most rarely see human traffic.

From the trailhead I headed up the Twin Peak trail until it broke out of treeline, from there I headed to Peak 5450. Skier types, like myself, consider peaks like this great training mountains. With a constant grade and solid footing you are able to maintain a high, constant heart rate and a good burn in the quadriceps. An hour and a half from the parking lot I was on the windswept top. I found two cairns but no sign of the Army rations pepper can that gave the name "Pepper Peak."

Following hunter's footprints to 5080, I then ascended Peak 5455. Here I found steel cable remnants and an old steel pipe (anyone know the history of this?). Heading east, I descended and then climbed Peak 5285. There was no cairn here but I'm sure hunters have passed this way before.

A series of sheep-engineered sidewalks allowed rapid ridge-running despite strong gusts from the east. I found a cairn on sub-peak 5385 on my way to Peak 5732 which forms the head of Goat Creek valley. The last mile of scrambling to the summit kept me entertained with wicked wind blasts coming from the Knik valley. The winds would scatter small rocks around and blinding termination dust spindrift would cease progress at times. At the top I searched for but found no cairn. I built one and dropped an orange juice bottle register in it.

From the top I quickly descended east to a col where I hid behind a rock for a respite from the wind, to eat and re-hydrate. I had been going for 4 1/2 hours, the winds were pretty bad but the cloud ceiling was above Bold Peak at 8000 to 9000 feet. Visibility was good so I decided to continue.

From the col I followed old bear tracks SE to the top of the ridge and then SW to a small pile of rubble, sub sub-peak 5420. SW of here is a point on the ridge marked 5191. This point is referenced in the Scree by Tony Bockstahler (see July, 1970). I didn't head toward it, instead I made a small cairn and headed SE to Peak 5430.

On this peak's flat summit the wind was really arching over it. I thought my lips were going to be sandblasted off by gravel and graupel. I tossed a few rocks together on the high point of the summit ridge and staggered SE into the wind. "This wind is too much, I'm out of here," I said to myself, and descended into the valley N of Bold Creek. From here there are good views of solifuction lobes on Peak 5745.

Lower in the valley the wind diminished, but with Peak 5745 so close I decided to buck the blasts one more time.  From the valley floor I scrambled standard Chugach crud for 1500 feet to the ridgetop.  Near the 5500-foot level it was interesting to find a band of rounded riverbed rocks.  On top of the ridge I again had to contend with the gusts whipping out of