University Peak is a high peak in the

Saint Elias Mountains The Saint Elias Mountains () are a subgroup of the Pacific Coast Ranges, located in southeastern Alaska in the United States, Southwestern Yukon and the very far northwestern part of British Columbia in Canada. The range spans Wrangell-St. Elias ...

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

. It is one of the twenty highest peaks in Alask

and one of the fifty highest peaks in the United States

It can be considered a southern outlier of the large massif of

Mount Bona Mount Bona is one of the major mountains of the Saint Elias Mountains in eastern Alaska, and is the fifth-highest independent peak in the United States. It is either the tenth- or eleventh-highest peak in North America. Mount Bona and its adjace ...

. However, it is a much steeper peak than Bona, and presents significant climbing challenges of its own. The peak was named by Terris Moore during the first ascent of Mount Bona; the name refers to the

University of Alaska The University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF or Alaska) is a public land-, sea-, and space-grant research university in College, Alaska, United States, a suburb of Fairbanks. It is the flagship campus of the University of Alaska system. UAF was e ...

Climbing

The first ascent of University Peak was in 1955, via the North Ridge. The leader was Keith Hart, University of Alaska. The party consisted of Gibson Reynolds, Columbia University, Leon Blumer, Sydney, Australia, Tim Kelley, University of Washington, Sheldon Brooks, Pacific Lutheran College and Norman Sanders, University of Alaska. The climbers started at the foot of the Hawkins Glacier, and negotiated a difficult icefall to gain a basin at around elevation, on the west side of the North Ridge. This is still the recommended easiest route, but now one can fly into the basin to avoid the icefall. This route is rated Alaska Grade 2+. A much harder route ( Alaska Grade 5) was climbed on the East Face of the peak (from the Barnard Glacier) in 1997, by

Carlos Buhler Carlos Buhler (born October 17, 1954, in Harrison, New York) is one of America's leading high altitude mountaineers. Buhler's specialty is high-standard mountaineering characterized by small teams, no oxygen, minimal gear and equipment, and relati ...

and Charlie Sassara. This East Face route, named "Third Semester", involves 8,500 feet (2,600 m) of 50-80 degree snow, ice and rock capped with a 300-foot (90 m) vertical ice cliff. The descent is via the North Ridge. The first ascent party, Charles Sassara and

, took 6 days to complete the traverse, including 2 days of storm that prevented movement.

Geology

University Peak consists mainly of an eroded subvolcanic granodioritic

intrusion In geology, an igneous intrusion (or intrusive body or simply intrusion) is a body of intrusive igneous rock that forms by crystallization of magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Intrusions have a wide variety of forms and com ...

that formed approximately 8.4 million years ago.

Bibliography

* Michael Wood, Colby Coombs, ''Alaska: A Climbing Guide'', The Mountaineers, 2001.

References

External links

* University Peak photo
Flickr
Saint Elias Mountains Landforms of Copper River Census Area, Alaska Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve Four-thousanders of the United States Mountains of Unorganized Borough, Alaska Igneous petrology of Alaska Miocene magmatism {{CopperRiverAK-geo-stub

Climbing

Geology

See also

Bibliography

References

External links