Winter Palimpsest

Welcome to the third and final post to employ "seasonal compositing," a chronology-folding algorithm used to resolve the substantial accumulations of BLOG LAG built up within the seasonal cycle of Kigsblog over several years. Like stars in a constellation, the images in this post may appear adjacent though situated at differing distances from the observer. Here are links to the inner transects: 

                             Fall Bouldering Interferometer

         Early Winter Superposition  

Outer Nick Band

 From the huge snow year of 2018, this flotsam dates back to the great days of the Nick Treinen era.

VIDEO: Wait for it... the awesome "Western Cwm" of Mt. Osborn (Ooquienuhk). 

VIDEO: Nick is skiing straight down V-boulder problems on King Mountain buried by the great snows of 2018.

Nice ski tour along the ridge north of King Mountain.

My driveway 2018

Mr. Nick

Near Pane of Freezing Rain

        Winter of 2022, Nome received the best shellacking I have seen in 22 years of living here. We emerged Christmas morning to discover that Whoville had been zambonied while we slept. Everything, the horizontal surfaces as well as the vertical, had been shrink-wrapped with a 2 to 3 centimeter veneer of prime verglas ice. The whole world had been transformed into one big ice climb. These life-as-ice-climb conditions lasted well into March and the whole town had to wear spikes. I spent many hours hanging out at the "Mud Mounds," the tailings piles at the base of Anvil Mountain that are worked and sculptured by giant machines in the summer months, and form an excellent ice climbing playground in the Fall and Winter that you can drive right into and use your car as a warming hut. In a year with the right conditions and the right diggings, the dirt cliffs make a good ice climbing surrogate where you can practice technique. But in a year that gets a good shellacking, like this previous winter, you could hardly design a better ice park. Good times with friends in the dim light of Winter.

Ben and Calvin are having fun up on King Mountain after the Great Freezing Rain Event of '21/'22

Ben on the Limestone Band at Anvil Mountain.
The finest shellac ever!

Ben down in the Anvil Mud Mounds on the 
"Crook Wall." This sliver of frozen mud glazed 
with ice became the go-to practice area for aspiring
mud climbers.

s

VIDEO: Ben remains poised at top-out on Crook Wall. Mud Climbing is brutish. You swing your blunted tools hard as you can trying for penetration. But the introduction of the shellac made mud a more delicate game requiring sharpened tools and precise swings.

THE TALE OF THE TRANSIENT GORGE:  Neither my dog, Lucy

, nor the Miocene Canyon behind her were fated to live many days past this picture, taken in late Fall before the Christmas Ice. A tribute to Lucy, all-time Kigs-dog, we will save for some other caption. This one holds the crazy tale of the Miocene Mud Gorge that existed at the base of Anvil Mountain for a few days in October of 2021. The miners really wanted to dig up this hillside, even though it delves disturbingly close to the town's drinking water aquifer, and the city of course said yes. I walked up on Anvil in the Fall looking for some frozen mud to climb and found this freshly-dug gorge, still steaming with newly-exposed metamorphic rock and silt from the bowels of the earth. The walls were forty feet high in some places— a mud climbing treasure vault! Only problem was, the temperature was too warm that day. The bottom of this crumbling, sloughing, hideous gorge was no place to be. I longed to sink first tool and grapple with the ancient mud, and vowed to return with rope and rebar as soon as the temperature dipped, but a trip to California intervened. When finally I returned a week later, something felt off. The gorge had disappeared!  Filled in. I guess there must not have been any gold down there.

This alluring twenty foot piece of choss saw the light of the late Holocene for a few days before the same agents of the Anthropocene that had uncovered it with their gigantic machines returned to thrust it back into darkness. The choss waits underground. No animating force of mud climbers will ever visit it again.    

Mmm, fresh choss right out of the earth.. It's not even rock, not really, but for those few climbers
with a taste for the the Mud, this looks tasty. A steady dribble of
stone and mud fell from these walls the evening I was there and I dared not linger under them.

We take what's dead

And breathe life in

And move like knives

Through scars on land

Still untouched

No stain of hands

Caramelized

In a tilted light

No chain stays unbroken

All aims get forgotten

The weight of lead

On floors of sand

The idea reduced again

To outcome

No chain stays unbroken

All aims get forgotten 

 

                                        

                                                         The Kings of Convenience

Ring of Ayasayuk

And here in the layers of the palimpsest, we detect another ring of Ayasayuk, carbon dated to November, 2021. The quarry face, and the path of the flow, remained largely unchanged from the  year before  or the year before that.  Vince and I managed to make a complete ascent of the Diretissima this year, defined as a complete climb of the quarry face up the middle of it in some way from bottom to top, although the Fourth Tier was missing from our climb this year due to inadequate coverage. We sure wanted to get back out to the Cape after the freezing rain event to see how our climb was affected, but the ice itself made the snow-machining conditions weird, not to mention, the ice glued our snow-machines and everything else to the ground.

Looking up the Third Tier ice. This pitch weighs in at a formidable WI I. I was happy to sew it up because my climber mind has become rotted with paranoia and superfluous fear.

Looking down the Third Tier

Vince clawing at odd smear on Fourth Tier, the only ice to
present up there this year. In other rings of Ayasayuk,
the presentation on Fourth Tier ice has been spectacular.

 Fourth Tier Ayasayuk Quarry, November 2021. That actually represents a rather healthy crop of ice for a ring. 

New Friends Overlay

A poignant fact of living in Nome is: friends come, and friends go. The graph showing "Number of Climbing / Skiing Partners Available Per Year" shows a few spikes over the years— I've actually given names to these times when I had someone to climb with, the Mikey Era, the Joni Era, the Drew, the David, the Nick— but in between the spikes lay long, multi-year intervals of partnerless, lonely, solo endeavors. I am happy to say the last couple of years have brought  the biggest spike ever, an unprecedented influx of motivated skiers and climbers, cool people, with updated technology and skills, ready to do what it takes to get out there in the hills around Nome four seasons, and willing to investigate some of the more arcane sub-routines of Nome mountaineering such as mud climbing, dry tooling, snow-machine mountaineering, plus mandatory endless boilerplate. The next generation is here. I am so grateful for these new friends. The fat padder, the cowboy, the all-arounder from up the Steese, the home town kid— some have already cycled through and fled the odd, hot little town of Nome, while others remain. One more look at that graph will reveal that I, allapa, have lived through so many  Friends/No friends cycles that I am becometh the old dodger. I am doubly grateful to new friends for putting up with my wheezes, dithering, and Alaska Rang PTSD. I simply must purchase new skis with AT rig and tech bindings. Three-pin has gone to the dinosaurs.

The first of the "digging of the pit" series, this one in Buffalo Creek in January 2021 on a cold, beautiful day with good powder.

At center is Pk. 2162, the highest hill in the Eldorado / Flambeau drainages east of the Kougarak Road. In November of 2020, Keane organized a school-night  mass assault on this hill and led us on a fine ride through hill and trough country to reach this hill, Eldorado, my first time up this high point. Clouds, white-out, and darkness intervened between us and home. Our moving string of lights at time doubled back upon itself or went in circles, but all made it to school on time the next morning. 

Map of Pk. 2162. Perhaps it warrants inclusion on the"Foothills of the Kigluait" list.
Foothills of the Kigluait,  Also, this excellent foothill.

 Pk. 2162 dig

Buffalo Creek

Nugget Pass, looking north past Salmon Lake

Allapa and Sean in the big bowl halfway up the east side of Ooquienuhk (Mt. Osborn), April 2019.
I am grumpy because my brand new snow-machine sits befuddled and paralyzed down in the middle of Grand Central Valley. Everybody else got multiple runs— for instance, Sean and Keith skied a chute up above Sean there— but I only got this one run because I had to go down and continue to beat my dead horse. 

Close-up East Face of Ooquienuhk, April 2021. Friends ascended and skied slopes to left. I deviated from the skiers and climbed straight up to the Southeast Rib, but overheated in bog snow. A nap descended from the heavens and overwhelmed me at the spot from which this was taken. Phil Hofstetter and I did a route up the middle of the east face in 2004 that had a couple of pitches of water ice. 

The Sluicebox Couloir in the Northwest Cirque of Ooquienuhk, April 2021.

May 2022, Peak 2610 at Copper Creek

Newton Peak after the storm

Allapa at Nugget, Tigaraha in background

The Bluff at Mt. Distin, Snake River Valley, April 2021

Ben, Distin Bluff, snow pit

Distin Bluff detail. Eighty foot cliff.

Another trip to Glacial Lake thwarted by extreme cold, February 2021.
We dared not shut down our machines. This is looking across
to Peak Bering Air and Glacial Lake from the benches between
Stewart River and Sinuk River. Another layer of frostbite.

Mt. Brynteson and the Brynteson Ribs, March 2022.  Vince and I did an easy
three-pitch route on one of the ribs. 

Greg Stoddard Belt

Greg Stoddard represents the arch Telly Fiend, the patron saint of debaucherous ski trips. Every spring there is a pilgrimage, once the Teller Road has opened but the snow remains on the hillside in many white stripes, to the Grand Singtook, Peak 3870, to ski the Solar Sidewalk which is usually in prime condition by that time. Participants read like a who's who of Nome alpinism, a veritable Burning Man of Seward Peninsula alpinism. I went in 2021, but didn't get invited 2022, so I'm missing some orbits in the Greg Stoddard Belt. I've let my skills slip, and my ski gear is from the Stone Age. I just didn't have the ratings.   

Vince slogging in stiff wind up middle part of ridge on Singtook, May 2021. The snow was too parsimonious that year to invite skiing on the upper part of the mountain, but the lower mountain softened up by afternoon. 

Allapa on top of the Singtook once again, May 2021.
Have climbed this thing 25 times, maybe? Not counting the bails.

Lucy at twilight

Zero For Seven On "Peak Grand Union" (part 1)

Osborn group from the west. Red Arrow points to Peak 4500+ ("Peak Grand Union"). This photo exhibited a trace of Syncronicity Factor the morning that Bering Air pilot Kevin Ahl posted it on Facebook. That same morning I happened to be heading out on a long snow-machine drive from Nome to the valley near the center of the photo, what I call the "Western Cwm" of Osborn.  Note the narrow, willow-choked venturi at the bottom of the Cwm, site of snow-machine epics to follow.

Osborn group from the northeast Left to Right: Mt. Osborn, North Peak, Pk. 4250+, Pk. 4500+.

Pk. 4500+ ("Peak Grand Union") from northeast. Is it not a Marilyn?

      The snow accumulation in March meant that deeper penetration into the Kigs was possible. My personal "Beckey's Black Book" offered Peak 4500+, which by my calculations ranks as the second highest summit in the Kigs, and looked like a fun and easy ski from the west, a good snow-machine mountaineering objective for a freezing-ass day. 

       But I never did manage to get up the thing. And what a series of seriously fun blunders it was that kept me all Spring from achieving my first little objective! What follows is my Fail Analysis for the unfinished project.

        Some readers may recall the KigsCourt decision which placed me under mandate to focus exclusively on "North Side Kigs" adventures (having somewhat exhausted south side adventures.) Because Nome is located to the south of the Kigluaik Range, it is easy for a Nome-based climber to forget that the Kigs are a range more spectacular when viewed from the north. Only problem is, it generally takes an extra day of resources to get over to the north side from Nome, whether that means an extra day of hiking, extra gas container, or extra helicopter.

      Conditions were prime in Spring 2015 for simply snow-machining to the north side, a trip that takes for me two hours, but much faster if you're Johhny Bahnke or some bad ass like that. Nevertheless, on a cold Winter day, without a lot of bivvy gear on the goddamn tiny snow-machine rack, I get always that deep water feeling on the north side of the Kigs. These are the Golden Years before the road goes in for the giant graphite mine that's coming. You're a long way from Nome.

Map of Osborn group. I propose the name "Peak Grand Union" for Pk. 4500+, as it stands at the head of the East Fork Grand Union valley.

ATTEMPT #1

When: March 15, 2015

Personnel: Allapa, Max, Drew, and a fourth guy whose name I've forgotten, but I remember he was a cheechako from a flatland state, and had a big snow machine, and this was his first trip to any mountains, and the big GRIN OF WONDERMENT on his face for the entire duration of the trip was a delight to behold.

Reasons for bail:  I chose the wrong cwm. ("Cwm," pronounced "koom," is Welsh for "cirque," and seems to have the right feel of a word for Mt. Osborn's western cirques.) The cwm we went up that first Saturday might well be called the "Southwest Cwm," but we needed to have machined further to the north and gone up the big "Western Cwm"  of Osborn to have accessed the target, Pk. 4500+. Funny thing is, I was convinced we were in the right valley for most of the day as we skied up. I pontificated knowingly to my friends about all the features.

Beta: To get to the entrance of the Western Cwm of Mt. Osborn, you have to head north all the way over Mosquito Pass down to the Cobblestone flats at the Oro Grande, practically to sea level. The cwms of Osborn present themselves as little gateways into the mountain on your right. You gotta be careful which gateway you pick. 
      Some heroic side-hilling on their snow-machines got Drew and the Cheechako into the Southwest Cwm above the willows. Max and I skied the mile and a half up the valley, and experienced far more bliss than the other two. The cirque is a mind-blower of marble with peaks in its own right, though you wouldn't be able to get over to the Big Oz very easily from here. We skied around on good snow, but achieved no exploits of any value other than what might be shared on a forgotten blog page. 

Ominous Foreshadowings: Drew exhibited a fanatical determination to milk his machine through the willows and get it up into that beautiful valley. 

Repercussions: The Southwest Cwm was so beautiful, the fun we had so tremendous, that the Judge let us off once we swore to return the following weekend.

Pictures From Attempt #1:  

Max silhouetted in a bird of light in Osborn's Southwest Cwm. I majestically pointed to the West Face of Pk. 3802 there in the center of the picture, and mistakenly pronounced it to be Mt. Osborn, and knowingly explained all its features that I knew so well. though something did feel a bit off.

Looking northwest from the "Southwest Cwm." 

Looking west to the upper Cobblestone: Suluun is partially visible in the background above Max's head.

Pk. 3802 and human pathogens invading the Southwest Cwm of Mt. Osborn

ATTEMPT #2

When: March 29, 2015

Personnel:  Allapa, Drew

Reasons for Bail:

a. GLUE. Huge entanglements of Attention Deficit Disorder caused us to arrive at the mountain too late in the afternoon.

       At the beginning of the 14-hour snow-machine mountaineering epic, as we tried to escape Nome, the GLUE drew us back repeatedly: hangovers, gas, befuddlement, mittens, baubles, boots, iPhone jack, playlists, iTunes, skin glue, shovel/paddle, face-mask, sock-bottle, sock-bottle, key, goggle, trip plan, sunscreen, through hooded eyes he regards the noonday sun.

b. "Started Up The Slope Too Soon Instead Of Walking Further Up The Valley" Syndrome. 

       The result of my route-finding error was climbing to the top of a pretty cool knob, Pt. 3800+, instead of the intended target, Pk. 4500+. It would have taken two extra hours to correct for this error, which would have led to "Frostbiting Your Frostbite" syndrome and arriving back at Nome in the middle of the morning. Did I mention it was cold? 

Complications: Abandoned machine in the Western Cwm of Osborn. 

       Drew is like Fitzcarraldo when it comes to getting a snow-machine past an obstacle.  When we reached the Cobblestone River after two hours of wind-plagued riding from Nome, we still needed to get 5 more miles up Mt. Osborn's Western Cwm, a narrow, glacier-formed valley guarded at the bottom by a willow-choked venturi, then opening out above into a great marble amphitheater  I took one look at the venturi and decided NOT to snow-machine up it, but instead donned my skis for the hike through the willow patches. Drew, however, grew obsessed with the snow-machine challenge of getting his Polaris up into that Cwm.
        Skiing up the north side of the creek was peaceful and enjoyable, while Drew could be seen waging violent battle across the way in the willows of the south side. Five times his machine got stuck, and five times he freed it. Mutters and curses floated over the breeze, then the triumphant roar of his machine as he spurted out of the vegetation in a great spurt of power, free again. 
         S.O.B. if he didn't get that thing up the valley. We met in the bowls up above, rejoicing at beauty off the scale. But afternoon shadows were beginning to elongate in the Western Cwm. 
        The pivotal moment:  "Drew, are you going to be able to get your machine back out of here?" Do we ski up the mountain now, or do we start down the valley now and fight the snow-machine battle with the hours we have left?"
        Doubt crossed Drew's face. His expression resembled an ape's trying to make sense of human speech. "It will be O.K.," he finally formulated. "Let's ski up the mountain." 
        Later, in the evening light, after we had drenched ourselves in perspiration skiing up the wrong side of the mountain, it was not O.K.:  despite Herculean efforts, Drew could not reverse his tracks out of the Cwm. His snow-machine augured into a final, deep drift, and lay silent. Darkness like ominous cellos swelled in the background.
       "Abandon ship, and double-ride all the way back to Nome, or there's gonna be frostbite."  
       So we flopped gumby-like through a bottomless meter of sugar snow down to where Smooth Andy G. waited. The Arctic Cat .570 started first pull. We stashed excess gear, knowing we would return, and commenced double-riding through overflow, up tricky draws, through the surreal filigree of the blow-hole at Mosquito Pass, both of us moving as one, cranking 5.10 off the handlebars of Super Smooth Andy G. to avoid tipping, and arriving in Nome on a soon-to-be Monday school morning.   

Interesting Meteorological Phenomena: the "Blowhole"

      Losers in the end, we did however show a touch of bad-assedness on the way in. Channeled wind running through Mosquito Pass created a Blowhole of considerable hose-factor, a pulsating artery of wind about 5 miles wide, outside of which the air could be perfectly calm, as it was for us all day after we conquered our fears and pushed through the maelstrom on our machines to reach the calm on the other side, after moments of tremendous doubt getting pummeled in total whiteout and gusts strong enough to knock us off our mounts. 
           Little did we know, the Blowhole that day, which was channeling in an odd, climate-changed manner as it vectored through the valleys towards the east, would be the first of many blowholes to stand in our way that blowhole Spring, as I would continue to pursue the initial climbing objective on my list, the ski ascent of Pk. 4500+.

Pictures from Attempt #2:

Looking northeast to Pk. 4500+ ("Peak Grand Union") taken from Pt. 3800+,  my high point.

Drew is already trapped in the Western Cwm of Osborn, but he hasn't admitted it to himself yet.

Skinning up Pt. 3800+.

Looking west from Pt. 3800+ toward the Oro Grande ridge. 

Looking south across the Western Cwm from Pt. 3800+

Looking north down the West Fork of Grand Union Creek

West Face Mt. Osborn. About eight weeks after this photo, Phil Hofstetter and a hardcore band of packrafters came from Grand Central valley on the other side and scrambled over the broad notch to the left of Osborn's summit in this photo. They descended "sketchy" summer snowslopes somewhere in the photo on their way down the Western Cwm and a traverse of the Kigs.  EDIT:  Naw, that ain't right. They crossed over a notch to the right of Osborn.    

Regular Route on Mt. Osborn

I wrote this route description for a group of visiting climbers last summer. See Among the Peakbaggers to see how their ascent turned out, and for pictures that show the Regular Route on Mt. Osborn.

(above) Mt. Osborn from the east from Grand Central Valley.

Southeast Ridge, Class 4, 3000 ft. elevation gain.  This is probably the easiest way up Mt. Osborn. Should be fine without rope or spikes in high summertime, but weather conditions on the summit ridge are changeable year round. Be sure to continue north along the summit ridge to the highest of the rock towers, the highest of the summit towers by all of ten feet.  Average hikers will take four to six hours round-trip from the base.  Descent is best made by going down the way you come up. 

East Face, WI3, M4. This offensive yellow line is a peemark on behalf of Phil Hofstetter and allapa;  we climbed this fun face in April of 2004, veering around for 8 hours to contrive a route with technical pitches of mixed and ice. On the return snow-machine ride that night, dehydrated and spent, we had never been colder in our lives.

East Ridge, AI 2. Another leg-lifting peemark on the internet.  Soloed this ridge on April 20, 2006. This ridge would most likely be a Class 3 walk-up in summer, but in alpine conditions it presents thousands of feet of cramponing up 45° wind-crust ice. Accessible via a low-angled snow couloir in the Northeast Cirque of Osborn.

(above) Approach to Southeast Ridge of Mt. Osborn.

Approach:  Park on shoulder/parking area just to the north of Grand Central Bridge on the Kougarak Road. Philosophies vary on which side of Grand Central to take for hiking up the valley, but Kigsblog strongly advocates for the north side (the right side, looking up-valley from the road).  There is a bluff running parallel to the trend of the river for most of the 8-mile hike to the base of Osborn;  in general, stay above this bluff for the first 4 miles of the hike-- some bushwhacking is virtually inevitable through this section, but by going through the proper channels it's not too bad. A hundred-year old road built by miners follows this route; I would strongly recommend following this road as closely as possibly, though it is completely overgrown in sections.  

      Start angling to the northwest where the bushes open up past Thompson Creek. When you get to the glacial moraines at the base of Osborn, you can follow the creek into the moraines, or better yet, aim for some prominent glacial erratics a couple hundred feet higher on the hillside to the right, and enter the moraines from up there. A great camp can be had on the West Fork of Grand Central in the moraines around the base of Osborn, oh King of the Kigs. Most of the hike is on BLM Land

(above) Mt. Osborn from the west. the Mosquito Pass side, the opposite side from Grand Central. Looked at from this direction, the summit tor is located at the apex of the mountain.

       More Southeast Ridge Beta:  A definite change occurs as one transitions from the lower ridge to the summit ridge; it's as if you suddenly enter a new layer of upper atmosphere.  The summit ridge itself is studded with a long line of rock towers, so in order to make one's way along the summit ridge towards the north, it is necessary to traverse sideways across 40° - 45° slopes, skirting just underneath the rock towers as one traverses sideways. This part of the climb is Class 3 (assuming summer conditions), not difficult climbing, more like steep hiking on sand and tundra patches with the occasional handhold on rock—  a fall would be very unlikely, one would need to fling oneself down the slope, and even then you probably couldn't get rolling— but one does have the sweep of the east face under one's feet to create an exposed feeling.  A rope threaded in and out of the rock structures can create a feeling of security, but most climbers will not feel they require it.

       The rock tower (tor) that looks the highest is not the highest above sea level.  As one begins the summit ridge traverse, one soon comes to an 80 ft. tall tor that dominates over the others. One might be tempted to make the mistake I made the first time by climbing this first tor;  I rope-soloed it and did some 5.6 moves.  From the top of this spire I espied another tor a half-kilometer to the north that clearly (to the naked eye) was a little higher, but I didn't have time to continue on that day—  it had to wait until a year later, when I returned to Osborn, and this time made the hike a few hundred yards further north along the summit ridge.  

         To locate the highest rock tower: continue north along the summit ridge (you will will be on easy ground on the east side of the ridgecrest) until you have reached the northernmost tower on the ridge. Then count four spires back to the south: you should be in the vicinity of Osborn's high point. The highest spire is higher than the penultimate spire by only 10 feet or so. Climb 15 feet of very loose Class 4 rock to a ledge in the notch; then climb about 25 feet of loose Class 4 up the west side of the summit tower.  Remember:  you don't get to say you've climbed Osborn unless you've gone to the very tippy-top! 

(above) Summit pinnacle of Mt. Osborn

(above) Northeast Face Mt. Osborn

      Gear for the Mt. Osborn climb:  Lightweight travelers may eschew rope, crampons, axe, and helmet in "high-summertime" conditions on the Southeast Ridge.  However, some or all these items may well be necessary, depending on conditions and comfort levels.  One long ice axe makes a very nice walking stick on this climb in any conditions. The only rockfall zone is under the summit tors on the traverse of the summit ridge, but the danger is not terribly pronounced.  A forty-foot rope and a few nuts would be all that was necessary for the highest summit tor. 

(above) Northeast Face detail

       First Ascent?: No information regarding Osborn's first ascent has ever bubbled up into my random flow, but almost surely, locals and visitors alike have been climbing Osborn for the last century or more.  Its status as a mountain lies somewhere on a wide spectrum between "big serious peak" and "just a big hill," trending toward the latter in mid to late summertime when the snow has gone away.

       There are stories.  Someone snow-machined to the top, it is said, which is perfectly believable if by "top" one is referring merely to the summit ridge, but there is a tendency on the part of Nomens to disregard the rock spires that protrude from the summit ridge;  I'll wager no one has snow-machined that last Class 4 move on the tippy-top tor!

(above) East Face detail

      Can Osborn be done in a day from the road?   Roman Dial mentioned a wager he made in the nineties while working on a field crew in the Nome area: he bet he could climb Osborn in a 24-hour day round trip from Nome, on bicycle and foot. He made the prodigious trip in a day, but in a stiff Grand Central fog, climbed the wrong peak.  So he went back and repeated the wager, this time from the road only, minus the bike ride from town, and climbed the proper Mt. Osborn. He wrapped a length of purple webbing around the summit tor for pilots to see, but this purple webbing either disappeared, or it is still up there somewhere. Roman never got his fifty bucks—  this would be a good time to pay it back.

(above)  West Face detail, looking south towards the Sinuk drainage. Photo was taken while perching on the tiny, rime-coated summit on the First Winter Ascent.

      I finally got up Osborn on my third attempt, my second year in Nome. Trying to follow in Roman's footsteps, I tried to do it in a day from the road in September without any bivouac gear but I got a late start, and, of course, I am not Roman. I found myself getting to the base of the mountain after a successful ascent just as the sun was going down. This left the eight-mile hike through the jungles of Grand Central still to go. "Ah, I'll just eskimo dance right here until the sun comes up and hike out in the morning," I thought, but just then saw the redwood—  an enormous pile of cured California Redwood left over from the days of the Wild Goose Pipeline in Grand Central.  It fired up easy as could be, and I spent the night playing the game where you sleep in the fire, first burning one side of your expensive nylon clothing, then the other.  The black, night ionosphere over the Imruk Basin crackled with plasma, the lights put on a show I will never forget as I fed the fire all night. At first light, the vast swamp that is Grand Central Valley was frozen solid, but only until the sun came around the corner— I raced out of there while the footing was good, back to the GLUE of TOWN.