Mt. Denison - The Route

Mt. Denison is located in Katmai National Park. The park is located squarely on the Aleutian Peninsula, in the southwest corner of Alaska. Our group first flew to Anchorage then onward to Kodiak Island. We then rendezvoused and hired a bush pilot to fly the team back across the Shelikof Straight to the eastern shores of Katmai.

The below map is a custom printed topographic map that we used for navigation while in Katmai. The red and green lines are superimposed to illustrate our originally intended route verses the actual. Although this map was immensely important to our planning, it has not been updated by the USGS since 1957. Being coastal mountain range with active glaciation, we were wary that it may not be completely accurate. Indeed, while the valley to the south of Hallo Bay proved to be to a superior approach, our pre-planned route indicated in red was not passable; the green line indicates the route we used in reality.

(click on image to get a better view)

As a backup, we acquired recent satellite images of the area to get a better representation of the current conditions on the Hallo Glacier. The red line represents the original 1977 and 1978 approach from Hallo Bay. The yellow was the proposed new route and the blue was the actual route we used to attain high camp on Hallo Glacier.

(click on image to get a better view)

The above aerial perspective, observed while flying over the Hallo Glacier in route to our destination, validated our decision not to follow the 1970's approach. The red line indicates the 1970's route. The large bay is Hallo Bay and the glacier is the foot of the Hallo Glacier. The arrows indicate where the original team made camp. The line indicates that the approach went directly over the lake... this is because in 1978, the lake was much smaller and had not yet expanded to that location.

This photo also indicates the 1970's route up the Hallo Glacier. The original team went to the right of the massive ice fall shown in this photo. Due to warming, the ice fall is currently in much worse condition than 1978. Richard Soaper, original expedition member and 2007 expedition member confirmed this observation.

The above and below photos delineate our 2007 approach to Mt. Denison. Major considerations were to avoid the messy swamp-like scrub common in Hallo Bay, the enlarged lake at the foot of the glacier, the broken and heavily crevassed lower section of the glacier and the 1000ft. ice fall. Using this passage, we hoped to travel on safe snowfields until we reached a relatively safe location on the upper portion of the Hallo Glacier.

(click on image to get a better view)