The Case For Tigaraha

This article is from the July 2011 Scree, the magazine of the Mountaineering Club of Alaska. 

The author engaged with 5.8 crux of the East Arete route where it climbs up to gain the "Sidewalk".

The Case For Tigaraha

            Most maps of the Seward Peninsula give three names for single mountains in the Kigluaik Range, north of Nome.  "Mt. Osborne" (4714) gets to have a name because it's the highest. The  "Singatook"(3870) gets to have a name because people have always used it for a landmark.  The third mountain is "Tigaraha."  Why does Tigaraha get to have a name? 

            Not knowing what I know now, I set off one summertime in the early two-thousands to find out.  The map showed "Tigaraha Mountain" to be within four miles of the Kougarak Road, so it seemed the simplest form of research to simply drive there and climb it. The mountain proved little more than a long, brown, ridge. The highest bump on the ridge (identified on the map as 3207) did sport a 15 ft. summit block necessitating a 5.4 move hoedadding fingers in rhizoid clumps over yawning choss slabs.  Other than this one move, the climb had been a Class 2 walk-up.                  

            As I pulled onto the summit, my attention was immediately grabbed by a new prize revealing itself to the west:  a great, granite-looking spike, eight-hundred feet high, a veritable mini-Arrigetch.  Aarigaa! But why did this lumpish ridge on which I was standing get to have a name, and that splendid mountain over there didn't?

Descending Class 4 slopes towards the south face
of Grand Tig. This is the crossing from the Sinuk
drainage to the Windy drainage approach .
 A rappel might be necessary from the point where
this picture was taken.

Back in town, I voiced my suspicions to those in the know.  They glanced away, gruff, non-committal, muttering.  Finally, I asked my friend Francis, an original King Island speaker of Inupiaq, about his knowledge of the Qaweraq word, "Tigaraha." 

            "Tigara," repeated Francis, giving me the finger.  Not the middle one, but his forefinger:  "Tigara," he said again.   A Qaweraq dictionary I had found  spelled the word this way, T-i-g-a-r-a, but due to inupiaq vowel-sounds and prosody in the second syllable, Francis' (King Island being similar to Qaweraq) pronunciation came out sounding like "teeg-aha-rah"— precisely how R.H. Sargent, in the 1912 U.S.G.S. survey, chose to spell it.  This, then, is my main piece of evidence:  Francis holding his finger aloft. "Tigaraha," meaning "forefinger," could only apply to the obvious insignitor located on the divide between the Sinuk and Windy river drainages, not the long, slug-shaped ridge between Sinuk and Buffalo drainages, as indicated on most maps. 

Mikey Lean approaching Tigaraha from the Sinuk side

            Regardless of appellation, the new mountain needed climbing, whether or not it had been before.  Around Mile 28.5 on the Kougarak Road there is a cut-bank gravel pit on the west side of the road; this has always proved a good place to stash vehicles and begin the excellent nine-mile hike west towards Mosquito Pass.  So began my Tigaraha years;  many a partner was lured from Nome to the towers, only to be crushed under the absurdly high, hiking-to-climbing ratio, leaving me alone  once again.  

  

East Arete of Grand Tig from the base of
East Tig. The Sidewalk is
the more horizontal part of the arete, and
is quite easy. The vertical part has
a 5.7 crack to gain the summit.

  




 The Sinuk River approach generally provides the quickest access to the peak from the Kougarak Road. From the Sinuk headwaters, scramble up  

Class 3 slopes to the crest between the Sinuk and Windy drainages, getting as close as you can to the point on the ridge where you would start climbing the East Tig tower, but then drop down via Class 4 cliffs, or a rappel, into an often snowy gully from which you can make your way over to the Notch between the West Tig and the Grand Tig, and climb Tigaraha from the Notch via the classic West Arete (II, 5.4).

      I highly recommend the alternate Windy Creek approach for overall ease. Windy Creek has the most awesome bouldering basecamp in the Kigs at the century-old landslide that spans the valley. From the valley floor, climb up to the Notch between the West Tig and the Grand Tig via the glaciated valley between Tigaraha and Falcon Killer Pk., taking the steep tundra chutes on the left that lead to the Notch.

  

Tigaraha climbing routes. The Notch Gully from the North is descendable in rock shoes by rappelling from snow
bollards. If the gully is not snowed up, it's a real trash pile, sometimes an ice climb.

            Tigaraha might wellhave been named after the bird finger, as the mountain consists of a main finger with two knuckles on either side, which I call the East Tig and the West Tig. Where you want to start the mega-classic regular route, the Northwest Arete of the Grand Tig (5.5), is the big Notch between the Grand Tig and the West Tig.  This Notch can be reached from the east basecamp (Sinuk River drainage) via a 500 ft., sometimes-icy couloir festooned with hanging pianos, but it is usually preferable (if you are on the east side) to labor up Class 3 and 4 slopes and cross to the other side (to Windy Creek side) in order to traverse around the upper slopes of the mountain, and reach the Notch from the sunny south. You can cross the crest to the north or south of the mountain, but both options present tricky scrambling;  once again, the kinder approach is from Windy Creek up Class 3/4 slopes.  These things I determined through much laborious bumbling.

Mylon Schield belaying Pitch 1, "Chimneys
of Tiresias"

            The Northwest Arete of Tigaraha (5.5, II) must surely betheclassic rock route of the Seward Peninsula.  Usually the plutonic rock of the Kigluaiks is patchy, horrendous, rust-colored gneiss, but this 4-pitch friction ramp in the sky is a patch of Tuolumne.  Solo it, and spare yourself the hernia of carrying a rope all the way in there, though bring your rock shoes.  A handful of nuts would do for the regular route;  a great deal more gear is recommended for the other routes on Tigaraha. (Racking rule for the Kigs:  three equalized pieces equals one reliable piece. Also:  pitons are the only damn thing that work.)  Downclimb pitches back to the Notch.  The first time I climbed the Northwest Arete, I found a single yellowed sling knotted behind a flake, low down.  I got that sixth sense that people had climbed the mountain before. So, who's got information?  I know you're reading this! 

Looking up at Tiresias route,
 Notch Gully, and Mylon

                  

            Until my encounter with the Crater Creek gneiss years later, I considered Tigaraha the closest granitic rock to the road.  The spectacular West Tig tower succumbed to an A1 rope-solo siege, two pitches out of the Notch. The first pitch could be freed at 5.10, otherwise the West Tig could be climbed by moderate, unprotected slabs on the south.  I hooked up with Kotzebue spider Lahka Peacock for a spectacular knife-edge cruise over the East Tig and Grand Tig (5.9, IV).  Another time I tried to rope-solo a "wall" route up the north face of the Grand Tig from the Sinuk side, but ended up in the choss-ridden "Chimneys of Tiresias" (5.8, III).  And days were spent on the quality, one-pitch "Fab Four Tors." 

Looking west at Kigs. Kougarak Road corridor is in the foreground.

1.  Tigaraha   2. False Tigaraha   3.  Mt. Osborn

Which peak would you name "Finger"?

            Talking with a skiing buddy just the other day, I was struck by a phrase he used: "...in there by Tigaraha..." The phrase was inserted without hesitation into a stream of conversation, and we both flashed in our minds on the same image of a finger-like peak.  After a while in Nome, this is how it gets to be;  the denotation of "Tigahara" defaults to the peak out by Windy Creek.

1.  Mile 28.5 Kougarak Road

2.  East Basecamp, Sinuk headwaters

3.  Tigaraha (Pk. 3400+ ?) (64°56'17.14" N / 165° 21'52.32" W)

4. West Basecamp at ancient rockslide, Windy Creek

5.  Mosquito Pass corridor

6.  Pk. 3207, high point of "False Tigaraha"

7.  Grand Central Valley

8. "False Tigaraha" (nee "Tigaraha Mountain") (Pt. 3200+) (64°55'39.9 N / 165°18'13.0" W)

Mikey with West Tig in background

Sargent was tired that day. It was late, and the snow was about to fly, and the USGS Survey agent was impatient to get back to the fleshpots of Nome. He just didn't want to walk very far from the railroad tracks that day, so he simply estimated how many ridges and valleys to the west the spire of Tigaraha lay, and called it good on the map. He finalized the quadrangle the next day, rolled the map into a tube, and set off for Seattle on the next available steamer. 

False Tigaraha