Knight Island Peak Scrambling

On June 17, 2005 Colin Quinn-Hurst, Rob Whitney and I (Tim Kelley) went to Solf Cove on Knight Island in Prince William Sound to scramble up a couple of peaks.  As you can tell from the following pictures ... it was a great day in some very unique and awesome country.

The map above shows the route to Knight Island, and the location of Solf Cove.

 Morning fog on Knight Passage.  Our destination peaks on Knight Island are in the distance. This map shows our route.  Blue is kayak paddling.  Black is kayak portaging.  Red is our hiking / scrambling route.
As we approached Knight Island we were greeted by a pod of Dall's Porpoises.  We stopped and watched while these 6 foot long black and white torpedoes played around our boat.  When we started moving they had to show off and splash away in front of the boat.

Very cool !!
We anchored in Solf Cove, paddled to the effluent of Solf Lake and then carried our boats up to the lake.  We then paddled across the lake and Rob showed us where to go !!! From the end of the lake (in the background) we bushwhacked up to a snowfield. Looking up the snowfield we saw a black bear.  Figuring the bear knew the best routes around here, we followed him (or maybe her).

Heading up to a notch in the ridge.

Nearing the summit.

Colin on the summit, looking south.  Wow !!
Here's a 360 degree shot from the summit of Peak 2368, the first peak we went up.
 
Can you say: "Bad Ass!"   The 2nd peak we planned on hitting was this 2410' peak.  We gave the shallow gulley on the face a go ... but retreated and went up the south ridge (on the right of this picture).
Heading towards Peak 2410, Solf Lake in the background. Peak 2368 in back. Heading towards Peak 2410.
After bailing off the front face, we ran down some snowfields towards the Bay of Isles, and then climbed up to a notch in the south ridge.

The route worked and we made the summit.  Montague Island is in the distance.

 The first peak we climbed this day. Solf Lake again.
A 360 from the summit of this 2410' peak.  Who's got the coolest playground?
Time to head back down. The Bay of Isles on Knight Island is one beautiful place. Expand this picture and check out the gravel island in Short Arm in the distance.  The island was made by debris from an avalanche gulley off of Iron Mountain.  Neat !
Rob and Colin head past a rock pillar to the snowfield that will take us back up to the ridgetop. We worked snowfields on the north side of the ridge to drop vertical down to the brush line. Paddling back across Solf Lake.
On the edge of Solf Cove ... only minutes from - FOOD !!  A fun day in a cool place with good adventure partners. Colin does his Dall's Porpoise imitation. Tim impresses all by catching a TWO POUND halibut.  I released it so I can re-catch it when it reaches 450 lbs.