Mount Ballyhoo

When I saw the name of the mountain beside the dock where the Viking Orion is parked, I knew the name must have been assigned by GI's stationed here in World War II. We had already been for a visit in Dutch Harbor, so we knew something about the history of this place, but one of our tourist maps showed two trails leading up to the top of the mountain. One was steep and went straight up the side of the mountain at a 45-degree angle for about a mile. The other was a more gentle 2.5-mile switchback that also ended at an observation site the Army dubbed Fort Schwatka.

I chose the latter path. After all, I have a few miles on my equipment, but I was a bit worried that I might not be able to hike the distance before all-aboard at 4:00 pm. At lunch the skipper announced that Back-on-Board was moved from 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm. No sweat. I had time enough.

Layering up, I threw on my Marmot over everything else so that I would be ready for any kind of weather. As it turned out that was a good idea. In the next two hours I had sun at fifty degrees, rain at forty degrees and a twenty mile-per-hour wind, and gentle clouds.

An unpaved road led to the top, but it was covered not with gravel, but rather with large, dark, rough stones that looked as though they might be some form of volcanic basalt. "Well, these are the Aleutians," I thought. The trail was about as steep as my daily walk on our street back home in the Uwharrie Mountains, but while our street has a couple of 20% hills that go for a hundred meters, this path kept the incline without a break all the way to the top. Twenty minutes into the trip, however, I felt good and found a pace I could sustain.

I passed a couple of cliffs overlooking our ship in the harbor, and in the clear, sunny air I couldn't resist stopping to snap a photo. Good thing I did. Thick fog soon moved in, and I couldn't see the next bend in the road.

I had installed maps.me on my iPhone, so I knew I could handle the route all the way to the top, but about three-fourths of the way, I met a tall, slim young man coming toward me down the mountain.

"How does it look from the top?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said. "I didn't get there. At the next switchback you have to go to the left, and the top of the mountain is still a couple of miles away. I can't make it back to the ship before 'back-on-board' at four o'clock."

"Take a look at my map," I offered. "At the next switchback you go right, not left, and the site of Fort Schwatka is not all the way to the top of the mountain. It's less than a half mile," I said. "Besides, 'back-on-board' has been delayed from four o'clock to five. Come with me. We'll find it."

He introduced himself as Bjorn, director of the ship's spa. He was over six feet tall and maybe had six ounces of fat in his entire body. As we walked he told me he was born in Sweden, but for the last thirty years has lived in Peru, Thailand, Vietnam, Spain, Argentina and Austria, with a few other places thrown in. I told him how the crew of the Viking Sun had welcomed us Vietnam veterans when we returned from Saigon, and I added the wonderful story of Chi Miller, a descendant of the Vietnamese royal family, who escaped after the war. It started to rain harder, so I cinched up my Marmot, and zipped up my camera and binoculars.

Finally we saw concrete bunkers half-buried in the tundra. We saw Quonset huts where ammunition had been stored. We saw circular emplacements for eight-inch guns that could fire a round twenty-two miles out into the bay. Their round tracks still had rusted roller bearings on them. The wooden roof of the officers' club had collapsed. We saw a buried observation pit with an iron ladder. Had we wished, we could have entered. Obviously partiers there before us had done so.

The biggest treat, however, was the view. The rain clouds cleared for a moment and the sun reappeared. I could see over to the next ridge. Fact is, I think I could see all the way to Vermont. I felt as though I was at the top of the world. We grabbed a few quick shots, then the clouds enveloped us again. The sun hid and the rain began again.

As we came down the mountain Bjorn thanked me for encouraging him to go with me. "I always hate it when I have to end a hike too soon. I never know what I have missed."

We had been all the way to Fort Schwatka and imagined how it must have been for the young soldiers there, cold, wet, and a long way from home. We came back to the comforts of the Viking Orion satisfied.

https://www.nps.gov/places/fort-schwatka.htmRead more