New 2017 Alpine Routes in Alaska’s Revelation Mountain

The Revelation Mountains in Alaska have long been a destination for keen alpinists to establish new routes. The first recorded trip to the range was 1967 by David Roberts and party.

In 2014, Canadian Ian Welsted, Darren Vonk and Kris Irwin visited the area and climbed a number of new routes.

In the spring of 2016, Europeans Gediminas Simutis and Frieder Wittmann spent three weeks in the area and climbed a number of new routes above the Fish Glacier in the Revelations.

s reported on their blog, the first route they climbed was up a new peak they called The Prophet. They called the long 450-metre ridge It’s a Girl.

They then aimed for another, likely unclimbed, peak they refer to as Mephisto. They climbed a long moderate neve line up an 800-metre feature with difficulties to M4 WI4.

The third route they established was a long mountaineering-style objective up a 600-metre feature on The Charlatan they called Piled Higher and Deeper.

The final and most difficult line was Alternative Facets up The Obelisk (first climbed by Clint Helander and John Giraldo a few years ago), a 900-metre M6 WI5 A1 up a steep alpine line.

In a story on Planetmountain.com, Simutis noted, “Our first attempt came to a halt when we retreated due to strong spindrift. After recuperating and allowing the snow to settle, we were back.

“A gully with good neve lead us to a series of mixed pitches that turned out to be the crux of the route and we had to aid through a couple of sections.

“After the mixed part, a snow ramp led us to a pitch of ice which looked deceivingly fat but its bottom part started disintegrating as we were climbing it. The remaining slopes went smoothly and we were soon brewing coffee on the summit as the sun was starting to hide behind other peaks.” Full story here.