Mount Elusive is an elevation glaciated summit located northwest of Valdez in the

Chugach Mountains The Chugach Mountains of southern Alaska are the northernmost of the several mountain ranges that make up the Pacific Coast Ranges of the western edge of North America. The range is about long and wide, and extends from the Knik and Turnaga ...

of the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S ...

. Set on land managed by

Chugach National Forest The Chugach National Forest is a United States National Forest in south central Alaska. Covering portions of Prince William Sound, the Kenai Peninsula and the Copper River Delta, it was formed in 1907 from part of a larger forest reserve. The C ...

, this remote peak is situated northeast of Mount Edison, southwest of Mount Valhalla, and north of Mount Einstein, near the head Columbia Glacier. It is part of the

Dora Keen Dora Keen (June 24, 1871 – January 31, 1963) was an American traveler, Alpinist, and social worker. She was the first person to reach the summit of Mount Blackburn and would subsequently write an article for ''The Saturday Evening Post'' title ...

Range, which is a 25-miles-long divide separating

Harvard Glacier The Harvard Glacier is a large tidewater glacier in the Alaska's Prince William Sound. The glacier has a 1.5-mile (2 km) wide face where it calves into the College Fjord. It is 300 ft thick and covers 120,000 acres of Chugach National ...

from Yale Glacier. The mountain was so named in 1957 by Lawrence E. Nielsen because of the peak's "elusive character in trying to locate its position on the map from aerial photos," and later officially adopted by the

U.S. Board on Geographic Names The United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) is a federal body operating under the United States Secretary of the Interior. The purpose of the board is to establish and maintain uniform usage of geographic names throughout the federal govern ...

in 1965.''Dictionary of Alaska Place Names'', Donald J. Orth author, United States Government Printing Office (1967), page 312. Nielsen was leader of the Chugach Mountains Expedition which was sponsored by the Arctic Institute of North America. The

first ascent In mountaineering, a first ascent (abbreviated to FA in guide books) is the first successful, documented attainment of the top of a mountain or the first to follow a particular climbing route. First mountain ascents are notable because they e ...

of this mountain was made June 22, 1957, by Nielsen and expedition party via the south ridge. He described the most distinguishing feature of this snow-covered mountain as being a spectacular north–south knife-edge summit ridge.

Climate

Based on the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, nota ...

, Mount Elusive is located in a subarctic climate zone with long, cold, snowy winters, and cool summers. Weather systems coming off the

Gulf of Alaska The Gulf of Alaska (Tlingit: ''Yéil T'ooch’'') is an arm of the Pacific Ocean defined by the curve of the southern coast of Alaska, stretching from the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island in the west to the Alexander Archipelago in the eas ...

are forced upwards by the Chugach Mountains (

orographic lift Orographic lift occurs when an air mass is forced from a low elevation to a higher elevation as it moves over rising terrain. As the air mass gains altitude it quickly cools down adiabatically, which can raise the relative humidity to 100% and cr ...

), causing heavy precipitation in the form of rainfall and snowfall. Temperatures can drop below −20 °C with wind chill factors below −30 °C. This climate supports the Harvard and Columbia Glaciers surrounding this mountain. The months May through June offer the most favorable weather for climbing.

References

{{reflist

External links

* Weather
Mount Elusive

Elusive "Elusive" was the first single for British singer-songwriter Scott Matthews and was released on 18 September 2006. The single received much airplay from BBC Radio DJs Jo Whiley, Dermot O'Leary and Zane Lowe between 7 and 10 August. Lowe also pla ...

Climate

See also

References

External links