Lituya Mountain

Lituya Mountain is a peak in the Fairweather Range of Alaska, United States, south of Mount Fairweather. Its eastern slopes feed a branch of the Johns Hopkins Glacier, which flows into Glacier Bay. On its western side is a large cirque, shared with Mount Fairweather, Mount Quincy Adams, and Mount Salisbury, which heads the Fairweather Glacier; this flows almost to the Pacific coast at Cape Fairweather. The Lituya Glacier flows from the south side of the mountain into Lituya Bay on the Pacific coast. Though not exceptional in terms of absolute elevation, Lituya Mountain does possess great vertical relief over local terrain. For example, the south side of the mountain drops 8,000 feet (2,400 m) to the Lituya Glacier in approximately 3 miles (5 km), and the southeast side drops the same distance in just over 2 miles (3 km). Lituya Mountain is not often climbed, partly due to its proximity to the higher and better-known Mount Fairweather, and partly due to difficult access and bad weather in the Fairweather Range. The Lituya name was published in 1852 as G(ora) L'tua, meaning "Lituya Mountain" in Russian by Mikhail Tebenkov of the Imperial Russian Navy.

First ascent