Photos: Climbing Shot Tower in the Arrigetch Peaks

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Looking south from the West Ridge of Shot Tower into an unnamed valley, and further south in the headwaters of the Kobuk River.

"Arrigetch," in Inupiat, means "fingers of the hand outstretched."

I can't remember when I first heard of the Arrigetch Peaks, a geographically small group of mountains in the Endicott Mountains, a sub-range of the Brooks Range, the northernmost mountain range in the United States. But ever since I saw my first photograph of a spire called Shot Tower, I knew I wanted to climb it. In many ways, I felt that my climbing career was simply training for my first trip to the Arrigetch.

I've felt ready to go for a few years now -- indeed, I've climbed bigger, harder mountains in other places. But it's expensive to get to the Arrigetch, and with no guarantees of good weather, I hadn't browbeaten any of my regular partners into going with me.