Alaska Passage

"We have the same parents, but we come from different litters."

This is how Dub Bludworth described the relationship between himself and his younger brother, Harry, in 1966, when their restless father agreed on a whim to move from Galveston, Texas, to Anchorage, Alaska. Although they shared an ancestry defined by travel and adventure on land and sea, the Bludworth brothers could not have imagined the adventures that awaited them in Alaska. Alaska had only been a state for seven years. The Alaska Highway still included over 1,200 miles of gravel and mud. Oil had yet to be discovered at Prudhoe Bay. The mountains of south-central Alaska remained wild and unexplored. Alaska was in its prime as The Last Frontier.

This is a story of brothers separated by age and experience finding adventure and one another in the mountains of Alaska. It is an account of the early days of mountaineering in Alaska when climbing there was in its infancy. It is a story of friendships, tragedy, and heartbreak. Most of all, it is the story of an unlikely brotherhood.