Sobriety Pass
[Brief] Stone-cold sober
Published 11-5-2022 | Last updated 8-17-2022
61.901, -149.077
[Unofficial name, no GNIS Entry]
In February 1984, a team of friends were a four-day ski trip looping around Montana Peak. John Bauman, Todd Frankiewisz, Steve Koslow and Marty Schmidt had started up the Gold Mint Trail to the Mint Hut, then over Grizzly Pass to the head of Moose Creek. Their route turned north towards the valley which is now home to the Mountaineering Club of Alaska’s Seth Holden Hut, and for two key waypoints they suggested the names Moosehead Pass and Blazing Saddles Pass, which remain in use today. On the third day they reached their farthest point in the loop and turned back south towards civilization. That morning had started at -10°F, and the next morning would dawn with the party camped just beyond a previously unnamed notch in temperatures around -25°F. Marty Schmidt later wrote in the Mint Hut logbook: “We named this one Sobriety Pass because our mind were frozen shut to think well.”[1]
With gratitude to John Bauman for proofreading.