Gates of Kiev
August 8, 2011 – 10:41 pm
One of the cooler hikes near Toolik is Gates of Kiev, the tallest peak visible from camp (7,775 ft). A couple folks from our research crew and I hiked this yesterday and had a great time. Above is a picture of the glacier beneath the summit. The mountain has two sharp peaks within a few hundred feet of each other and is named after an architectural structure in Kiev that had a similar shape. I wanted to get a nice picture of the two peaks, but alas, the summit was foggy all day.
We hiked from Galbraith campground to a crag just below the taller of the two summits for a round trip of about 15 hours. As we knew before starting, the summit is inaccessible from our approach (north ridge) due to an almost vertical rockface (below). A good climber (i.e. not me) could probably do this without too much trouble, but perhaps not in the snowy conditions we had yesterday.
More pictures here.
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