Alaska Range Peak Carries the Institute Name

Shown at right are Keith Hart, left and Keaton Keller camping on a glacier near Institute Peak.

The Geophysical Institute has a beautiful namesake in the Alaska Range. Institute Peak juts majestically above the surrounding glaciers and nearby mountains about 120 miles south of Fairbanks. The peak, which rises like a snowy pyramid between Canwell and Gulkana glaciers, can be seen from the Richardson Highway.

Until scientists from the Geophysical Institute began exploring the Alaska Range in the early 1950s, Institute Peak was a nameless, unclimbed mountain. Now, almost fifty years later, it seems fitting for the Geophysical Institute's namesake to be on topographic maps in a region studied by so many scientists.

Gene Wescott, a Geophysical Institute professor of geophysics emeritus, and Charles Deehr, a professor emeritus and auroral forecaster, have been climbers since they were graduate students at the Institute almost 40 years ago. With two others, Wescott and Deehr made the first ascent of Redoubt Volcano in 1959.

Times were different back then, when the Geophysical Institute was just a decade old. Many of the mountains in the Alaska Range had not yet been climbed, or named. When Wescott, an experienced climber from California, came north, he teamed with other climbers and was the first to scale Old Snowy, Aurora, and Meteor peaks, all in the Alaska Range. He and others shared the honor of naming Aurora and Meteor peaks.

Wescott and Deehr were in the second successful team of climbers ever to reach the narrow summit of 8,000-foot Institute Peak. Along with Moonok Sunwoo and George Oetzel, Wescott and Deehr attempted the climb in February 1961.

Although Oetzel became sick and didn't reach the summit, Sunwoo, Wescott, and Deehr, became the second group of men to stand on Institute Peak. In doing so, they made the first winter ascent of the mountain, which must be approached by extensive travel on either the Canwell Glacier from the north or the Gulkana Glacier from the south. The peak was named by another team of climbers that failed on a first attempt, but reached the summit in April 1954.

Phil Bettler, George Swenson, Keith Hart, Keaton Keller, and George Schaller (who was later to become a world-famous biologist and conservationist) all reached the top of the then-nameless peak. Because all but Schaller worked, or eventually worked, at the Geophysical Institute, they decided to name the mountain for the research facility.

Prompting their decision was the fact that another team of university climbers--including longtime Geophysical Institute scientist T. Neal Davis--had made the first ascent of a mountain in the St. Elias Range and named it "University Peak" after the University of Alaska.

Wescott was president of the Alaska Alpine Club at the time, and made the first ascents of several Alaska Range mountains with other scientists who were accomplished climbers.

"There were still first ascents to be done then," Wescott said. "We arrived here at the right time."

Even though most of Alaska's mountains now have names, there are still firsts to be made. Wescott and Geophysical Institute Professor of Physics Davis Sentman recently pioneered research on Sprites and Jets, which are colorful electrical discharges that occur above thunderclouds.

Like Institute Peak, Sprites and Jets existed, but Geophysical Institute scientists were the first to name them.