THE FRIEDRICHS FAMILY WEB SITE        Contact:   Marty.Friedrichs@Gmail.com
Bryan's Climb in the Brook Range Alaska August 2009
In August of 2009, three friends and I hired a bush plane to fly us from Cold
Foot, Alaska to the western bank of the Alatna River, deep in the Brooks
Range.  He was instructed to come back in two weeks to pick us up. From here
we hiked 2 days (covering about 12 miles) up the Ayogamahala creek to a
basecamp below the Arrigetch peaks.  
THE FRIEDRICHS FAMILY WEB SITE        Contact:   Marty.Friedrichs@Gmail.com
Our main intent
was to climb the
West Ridge of a
striking granite
spire named Shot
Tower.  After
setting up camp
and resting for a
day we left the
tents at 4 am on
the morning of
our intended
climb.  The
scramble up to
the base of the
ridge took two
hours.  We then
began climbing as
two teams of two;
one positioned a
few hundred feet
above the other.  
A long day of wildly spectacular climbing and scenery
followed, including a final pitch of aid climbing just
below the summit on an overhanging slope
This was then followed by an equally long, but decidedly more tedious night of
rappelling and hiking back to our tents (possible in Alaska due to days with the
endless daylight). We finally collapsed at 6 am the following morning after 26
hours of straight climbing.

Over the next few days we attempted another mountain and climbed a new,
small, 4-pitch climb on a little bump of rock above camp, but mostly just sat
around eating and gawking at the views.  
We managed to hike out in a day, motivated by the thoughts of showers and our
dwindling food supplies, and were picked up at the same location we were dropped off
two weeks prior. Our pilot was the human outside our own group that we saw in these
two weeks.      -  Bryan Friedrichs August 2009