Teton Pass-Washboard Reef traverse

The backdrop on the traverse was the Wrong Ridge just across the valley

I've entered the Bob Marshall a couple of times from the Washboard Reef and each time I've looked across a broad ridge that leads to Teton Pass wondering how it would be to walk across it.
Friday I found out, doing the traverse from Teton to Washboard.
It is a long day hike --- about 17 miles--- with some 5,000 feet of elevation gained.

Taking advantage of snow for "skiing"

We found considerable snow, enough that at one point I almost turned around because I questioned the footing on the ridge's high point.  Enormous cornices still hang off the east and north facing slopes of the ridge line.
The views on this ridge are remarkable.
We were facing the spectacular Wrong Ridge just across the valley.  It looks like something that was chunked off the Chinese Wall.  Pentagon and Silver Tip peaks dominated the western horizon.  We could see Stimson, Flinsch and Rising Wolf peaks in Glacier National Park.  To our east and north were Lockhart and Wright peaks, the big boys in the neighborhood.  To the south, Baldy, Ear, Rocky.
Unlike last week where I had to deal with some high Class 4 pitches of rock, this was straight Class 2 and a small amount of Class 3 walking.
The first third of the hike is the trail to Teton Pass up the West Fork of the Teton, Trail No. 114, which rises about 1,600 feet through fire and timber to a forested pass where Teton County meets Flathead County above the Bowl Creek country of the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

Wilderness sign at Teton Pass buried in snow

Then, the off-trail climbing begins on a 5-mile ridge that crosses six "peaks" (in succession) of 7,730 feet, 8,250 (the high point) feet, 8093 feet, 8016 feet, 7893 feet, and 7,984 feet where it meets the Washboard Reef/Wrong Creek Trail No. 117.  All of this is on the Continental Divide.
The final 6 miles is down the Washboard-Olney Creek Trail No. 117 as it merges back into Trail No. 114 and back to the West Fork trailhead.
Mark Hertenstein described the trail to the Teton Pass as like "walking the Appalachian Trail" because it was in the timber most the way.  It hadn't been cleared yet by a trail crew and we saw grizzly, elk, moose, deer and mountain goat tracks in the copious mud in this stretch.
His adjective for the ridge walk was "Glacieresque" which is some compliment that I can't disagree with.
The only problem I encountered the entire walk was on the side of the high point where a large snow drift hung from its top down about 250 feet.  Hertenstein found a good route where he could kick steps in the relatively stable snow for about 75 feet until he could reach more stable, exposed rock and walkable scree.
The ridge was carpeted in pink Douglasia and blue Forget-Me-Not flowers that created rock gardens in the limestone.  I'm glad we didn't experience a predicted thunderstorm because the ridge was pocked with evidence of multiple lightning-strike-caused small fires.  This ridge is a lightning target.

At 8,250 feet, this is the unnamed high point on the ridge

The day that had begun overcast turned bright blue on us and made the ridge walk all that much more glorious.
Enormous cornices of snow hung beneath the ridge line all the way, forecasting stable stream flows for the rest of the summer.  There were also vast fields of snow that Hertenstein could not resist "skiing."
The trail back down Washboard Reef is not evident or easy to find.  Hertenstein discovered it with his GPS, while I was perusing my topo maps.

A cascade above Olney Creek off Washboard Reef

The first half-mile of the trail down the reef loses considerable altitude quickly and it was covered by a large drift, which we glissaded and boot kicked.  This entire area was hit heavily by the 2007 Fool Creek fire, which burned hot and took everything.  We didn't see much evidence of new trees, but there is lush growth in the area.  The trail was difficult to follow because of the burn.
At the junction of Olney and the West Fork we had to wade high and fast water to return to Trail 114.

On the high point.

On the way back to the car I marveled at this country we had passed through.  Yes, while on the ridge we were in "designated" wilderness, wilderness that had been approved by Congress.  But, the entire West Fork below the ridge and that area just west of Mount Wright to the Continental Divide are roadless, but not designated.  I'm told these areas were stripped out of a 1978 Bob Marshall Wilderness additions bill by former U.S. Rep. Ron Marlenee.
These are included in the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Bill pending in Congress.
Seems like a no-brainer to me!

Teton Pass/Washboard Reef traverse route

30 years later, a sweet walk up Mount Wright

My son, Demian, 37, atop Mount Wright last Thursday for the first time in 30 years.

The day before the Teton Pass-Washboard Reef walk, my son and I did a quick day hike up Mount Wright.
This is always a joy because of the terrific views this centrally located and high peak offers.
It occurred to me that the last time he had done this hike was in 1982 when he was 7-years-old!  The hike is a 3,200 feet elevation gain.
It was very sweet to be able to do this with him 30 years later, sharing this northcentral Montana treasure.

Demian, at age 7 in 1982, next to his Mom, his first time on Mount Wright.

Walking a Scapegoat ridge

An unnamed alpine lake beneath the high point on the Wood Lake Hogback in the Scapegoat Wilderness

"Hogback" isn't the kind of mountain name that I find particularly attractive.

Yet, the hogback I walked on Friday is as pretty a place as you can imagine.

It's been in sight all these years as I've driven up the Benchmark Road out of Augusta.  I've always made a mental note of this "Wood Creek Hogback" which starts with Crown Mountain and ends near the Benchmark Campground.  This is a major ridge walk.

We walked a major section of it, making sure to hit the high points, with 7,977 feet the highest.  We gained more than 3,700 feet of elevation along the way.

Jim and Mark working way through cliffs

I don't think we could have found a more difficult way to get on top --- approaching it frontally through the cliffs.  And, getting down wasn't all that much easier.

I'm just not the climber I used to be.  My balance is shot and I get dizzy fairly easily, so working my way up and down Class 4 cliffs is laborious and time consuming.  Luckily, my climbing partners Mark Hertenstein and Jim Heckel are patient and helpful in getting me up and down.  But, I see the handwriting on the wall and  this kind of climbing will be in my past fairly soon.

It was my second time up the Benchmark Road in four days and serendipitously we started our way up across the road from where Katie and I had stopped to look at the Lick Creek Falls for the first time.  While there I looked up and told her I'd like to try to get on the "hogback."

When offered as a possibility Friday, Hertenstein jumped at it.

Lots of snow all the way

Patrol Mountain ridge and lookout was within view

It would have been an easy climb up for me if we had started up the ridge a mile or so to the north where the cliffs recede.
Likewise, it would have been easier to descend further south down the ridge than where we did.
The biggest surprise of the hike was a discovery of an alpine lake just below the high point on the ridge.

Walking the Wood Lake Hogback

At first I thought it might be the official Alpine Lake just north of Crown Mountain.
But, no, I had seen that lake from Crown before and it was nothing like this jewel beneath us.
I rechecked the map and located a tiny, almost indecipherable spec of lake on it and figured that must be it.
The views from the ridgeline on this clear day were astounding with the Scapegoat Mountain massif and plateau dominating the southwestern horizon.  Right in front of us to the west was the Patrol Mountain ridgeline, sharply defined by its many avalanche chutes.  Straight Creek separates that ridge from the hogback we were walking.
There was plenty of snow on the hogback and the cornices were massively thick.

Our Hogback walk route

The mountains to the west, deep in the Bob Marshall and Scapegoat are full of snow, portending good streamflows and (I hope) a late or non-existent fire season.
One of the big surprises came at the end of the hike about 600 feet above the road when we ran into an extremely deep and steep canyon that we had to down climb and then upclimb the adjacent slope.

The Scapegoat Mountain high country behind me to the west

A Father's Day trip to Glacier

This moron from Wisconsin jumped into this rushing pool of frigid water in the pool beneath St. Mary's Falls.  He's lucky to have survived the jump and swim.

In the water.  

Katie and I took a quick trip to Glacier National Park Saturday and Sunday, my first time in the park this spring.
We stayed at the Many Glacier Swiftcurrent cabins and did a series of day hikes.
The weather was extremely changeable and we got rained on several times.
We hit the St. Mary and Virginia Falls trail and Fishercap Lake the first day.
On Sunday it was Fishercap again hunting for moose and then a walk from the Jackson Overlook on the Going to the Sun Road to the Siyeh Bend, where a heavy rain forced us back.  The Road is still closed, but we could have hiked all the way to Logan Pass if the rain hadn't been so heavy.  We're told the pass will open this week.

Mount Jackson

We stopped at East Glacier Park and then went hunting for moose again at Bear Lake off Marias Pass, again coming up with nothing.
There is still tons of snow in the high country at Glacier, although some of the peaks near the Front in St. Mary's and Two Medicine look climbable.
There were very few trails open in the Many Glacier area because of bear and snow closures.
We saw a small grizzly wander through the campground at Many and another grizzly cross the road near Two Dog Flats at St. Mary.

A Mann Gulch remembrance tour

Wayne Phillips at the spot where fire survivor Robert Sallee says he went through a crevice to the ridgeline and saved his life.

If you’re looking for a family day hike guided by a book that reads like a historical mystery try hiking Mann Gulch and reading Norman Maclean’s “Young Men and Fire.”

Thirteen smokejumpers died Aug. 5, 1949 in the gulch, located near Meriwether Picnic Area in the Gates of the Mountains Wilderness in the Helena National Forest.

The smokejumpers were dropped into Mann Gulch and died trying to outrun a fire that blew up on them.

Picture Point on Mann Gulch.  

The Mann Gulch fire is significant because it was the most tragic event in smokejumper history at that time and because a life-saving technique known as using a “back burn” came into standard practice because of the event.  The fire boss on Mann Gulch was Wagner Dodge, who when seeing the fire approaching, lit a fire around him in the grass and stepped into its ashes and was saved because the larger fire had no fuel.  Dodge had futilely tried to get his men to step into his backfire.

For years the Gates of the Mountains tour boats have swung by the mouth of the gulch several times a day during summer months recounting the catastrophe.

Maclean’s book was published in 1992, two years after his death at age 87, and is an exhaustive account of the fire, detailing how the firefighters ran uphill, trying desperately to reach a ridge line several hundred feet above them to escape it. 

In addition to Dodge, four others survived, but two of those died the next day.  Only three reached the ridge line and one of those died from burns received before the ridge was reached.

Where smokejumper Eldon Diettert died.

Maclean, who is probably better known as the author of the Montana classic, “A River Runs Through It,” was haunted by the deaths of the smokejumpers and returned to Mann Gulch into his late 80s, trying to recreate the chain of events that led to the fatalities.

He invited the two survivors who reached the ridge, Walt Rumsey and Robert Sallee, to show him where they attained the ridge (and safety) through a “crevice” in the quartzite and limestone rimrock that block the top.

Maclean took the official fire reports and first-hand accounts from survivors, and did measurements with a hand held tap measure, and concluded that where Rumsey and Sallee say they hit the ridge was far east of where they did.

All this has a bearing on trying to corroborate Dodge’s account of events and whether his back burn rather than the main fire might have killed some of the smokejumpers.

On a hike Tuesday organized by H. Wayne Phillips of Great Falls, himself a former smokejumper, and two other former smokejumpers and one former paratrooper, the questions raised by Maclean’s book were examined and argued.

Maclean's book was our true guide.

Among those points:

Where did Sallee and Rumsey crest the ridge?

·       Did we find the “crevice” that Sallee said is the correct one?

·       Did we find the “crevice” that Maclean claims?

·       Where was Sylvia’s rock (used as a certain measuring point for the back burn and ridge run)?

·       Where did Wag Dodge set his back burn (another crucial measuring point)?

·       Can we locate the grassy slope that Sallee and Rumsey used on the ridge before descending to the rock slide (and ultimate safety)

Phillips stopped to leave some sweetgrass at several of the crosses marking the spots where the smokejumpers had died.

Probably the most conventional route into this area is from the Meriwether Picnic Area reached by the Gates of the Mountains Tour Boat.  A trail leads leads from the picnic area up and over the Meriwether-Mann Gulch divide. 

Another route is again, by boat, and would dump the hiker at the bottom of Mann Gulch where it meets the Missouri River.

Assessing where the drama occurred

Finally, the route we took is an abandoned Forest Service Trail that rises from Willow Creek a couple of miles beyond the Willow Creek-Elkhorn turnoff in the Beartooth Game Range.  About a quarter mile from the main Forest Service trail into Gates of the Mountains Wilderness Area a ridge comes down from the south and then it’s a couple of miles and 732 feet of elevation to Picture Point above Mann Gulch.

Jim Phillips, one of the smokejumpers on the trip, will help lead a group of retired smokejumpers and Montana Conservation Corps volunteers in the next couple of weeks restore that trail.

The big caveat about this area is that beyond that Willow Creek turnoff the road is as rough as it can be.  I have a good all wheel drive Rav 4 with high clearance and I scraped bottom several times. 

Wayne Phillips suggests a better route right up from that turnoff on a ridge that rises more than 1,000 feet to Picture Point ---- but there is no trail.

I think this would be the best route in and you would save lots of wear and tear on your car.

I highly recommend Helena science teacher Rod Benson's virtual tour Web site as another guide if you're planning to make this trip: http://formontana.net/gulch.html


Story I did for the Great Falls Tribune Aug. 6, 1978

Two different routes to the same place.  The refurbished hiking trail is to the right in this map.  Wayne Phillips' off-trail route is to the left.  Wayne's route would allow the hiker to bypass the extremely poor road where the road crosses Elkhorn Creek and proceeds up Willow Creek. 

A quick run into the Scapegoat Wilderness Area

The pack bridge over the South Fork of Sun River at Benchmark.

On Tuesday my wife and I took a quick recon trip into the Benchmark area and walked a couple of miles of the South Fork Sun River Trail into the Scapegoat Wilderness Area.

The short day hike renewed my enthusiasm for this area when you don’t have much time.

It is a quick way into the wilderness and there’s plenty of good scenery to be had.  Some of the trail was pointed directly at the Patrol Mountain cabin, where there is still some snow.

On the way out we spotted a waterfall on what appears to be Lick Creek a mile or two above Wood Lake.

I’ve driven this road numerous times but have never noticed that fall before.

A waterfall we discovered Lick Creek Falls off the Benchmark Road above Wood Lake.

Arrow, Lava peaks in Highwoods

The route along the ridgeline

The weather was so unsettled this weekend I wanted to stay close to home for my hikes.

Although I've been in the Highwoods lots this spring I thought that Arrow Peak at 7,485 feet and the second highest peak in the range might be something worth doing again.  If the weather changed, it wouldn't take too much to abort the trip.
We had been on the Arrow ridge a little over a year ago while skiing, climbing Lava Peak (7,142 feet) along the way.
We had reached this peak by skiing a ridge from the Highwood-Arrow Creek divide.  We can in from the Geyser side of the range, using the Scion Kop access off Montana 200 east of Raynesford.  This is the area where a large wind farm is under construction.
We wanted to try it as a hike and extend it to Arrow Peak.

Volcanic outcroppings on ridge line

It worked out marvelously and the weather cooperated nicely.
This is really a wild section of this isolated mountain range where taking the wrong turn can plunge the hiker into a remote drainage that never seems to end.
That's something that happened to us on the way down, adding some mileage and elevation to the hike.
The straight-forward hike gains about 2,500 feet if both peaks are climbed.
The views from on top Arrow are exceptional, with the Bear's Paw, Little Rockies, Sweetgrass Hills, Little Belts, Big Belts, Judiths, Snowies  mountain ranges and Rocky Mountain Front in clear view.
The stretch from Lave to Arrow is a gorgeous, open ridge walk punctuated by volcanic outcroppings.
It is extraordinarily green this spring because of all the rain the past couple of weeks.

The red line is our up route; the blue line, where we got lost

Hiking season begins in earnest; Square Butte, Windy Point, Mount Werner

Here I am enjoying the Mount Werner ridge line in the Front on Monday.

The spring weather is cooperating and I'm out in it hiking.
The past three days I've climbed Square Butte, Windy Point in the Highwoods and Mount Werner in the Rocky Mountain Front.
It was only the second time I climbed on Square Butte, a sort of icon for the Great Falls area that has a prominent place in Charlie Russell's paintings.

Through the Square Butte Canyon

We went with the Get Fit Great Falls organized National Trails Day event on Saturday.  The hike was so popular that it was split into two groups of about 20 hikers.
Brad Hamlett, the rancher and state senator who owns the access point, was gracious enough to permit the trespass.
On one occasion about six years ago Hamlett allowed me access to Square Butte, but we took a different route than the one offered Saturday.  The National Trails Day hike went up the "conventional" route that once was an old jeep trail on the south side of the butte that climbs about 1,000 feet to the top, passing through vast, high canyons of the volcanic rock that gives rise to the butte.
My previous visit had been on a gray winter day.
On Saturday it was partly sunny and relatively warm and the grass was yet ungrazed, sweeping in undulations in all directions.

A rattler offered some excitement to the hike

We wandered from south to east along the rim of the butte and enjoyed tremendous views of the Adels, Little and Big Belts, Highwoods mountains and glimpses of the Rocky Mountain Front with Caribou Peak on the Continental Divide most prominent.
Our excitement on the hike was a couple of rattlesnakes, one coiled but not threatening.  We also encountered a colorful bull snake.


Windy Point
Katie and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary Sunday in Fort Benton with a stay at the Grand Union Hotel, a gourmet supper, and a concert.
We headed for the Highwood Mountains in the morning Sunday for day hike, doing the Windy Point hike that gains roughly 1,500 feet over two miles, wending its way through spruce and lodgepole forests with open parks full of wildflowers.  The black hawthorn tree was in full flower.

Black Hawthorn in flower in the Highwoods

It was green, green, green.   There are wildflowers everywhere.
The Thain Creek Campground reconstruction is finally complete.  The campground had been closed for several years after a spring flood.
One of the benefits of the flood was that beavers moved into the Briggs Creek area above the campground, damming the creek and a moose has moved in.
Hikers told us that the moose has been making guest appearances in the campground.
We saw moose droppings on the trail.
A small section of the Windy Point trail has been reconstructed in the area where the the old trail had risen sharply to the ridge line.  Blow downs had clogged the old trail.
This new section is more gently contoured and pleasant to hike.




Mount Werner

Descending from Werner ridge line into Blackleaf Creek

On Monday we had set out to climb Choteau Mountain, but when we saw the gathering storm clouds, we changed plans and headed to the Blackleaf Canyon, with nothing more in mind that passing through it on a fossil hunt.
As we got into the canyon the sky cleared and we decided to hike to the divide that separates Blackleaf from the East Fork of the Teton River drainage --- a high divide at over 7,000 feet.

Jones Columbine amid the limestone.

Once through the canyon the scenery is dominated by Mount Frazier on the right hand and Mount Werner on the left, with Frazier being dominant.
There were wildflowers everywhere, with the purple clematis vine one of the most dominant.
The high alpine flowers are out, particularly the douglasia phlox and Jones (limestone) Columbine most prevalent.  We also saw bunches of forget-me-nots.
On the high divide we could see clearly into snow-covered Bob Marshall and decided we wanted a better look and worked our way up the Werner Ridge.
Werner is really a series of bumps on this ridge.
 The actual peak to the north and east is at 8,090 feet and is one foot less in height than the first "bump."
We hit that 8,091 feet peak and called it good, enjoying exceptional views all the way into Glacier Park where Mounts St. Nicholas and Stimson were clearly visible.  Mount Frazier to the northeast was grand, as was Mount Wright to the west.

Werner route .

We were pleases to see so much snow in the high country.
Because we found the Werner Ridge fairly knifey, we went to a saddle to the east and descended down a broad valley of scree --- a very scenic way down.
We had expected and hoped to see wildlife in this wild area, but caught not a glimpse.
I've finally put my skis up for the season and it appears to be a fine hiking season ahead, indeed.

Jim Heckel ascends Werner.  Bob Marshall Wilderness offers a backdrop.