An eventful Patrol Mountain climb

Samsara Chapman with May.  Sam is in her 25th season as Patrol lookout

The iconic view of the Patrol Lookout from the high saddle

A very unhappy grouse attacked us on the trail worried about her brood

Above the saddle with Sugarloaf in the background

 I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before our annual Patrol Mountain climb.  I had a blistering migraine. 

But that might have been the least of our headaches on the climb.

Things went pretty routinely given the hot, hazy weather.  It was 47 degrees when we began and we had pretty good visuals, despite the smoke.

When we got to the top we visited with Samsara Chapman Duffey, now in her 25th summer at the lookout perched on a high ridge in the Bob Marshall/Scapegoat complex at 8,015 feet.  She is always a wealth of information and we enjoy hearing about ridgewalks and mountain climbs there.

From the colorful saddle below her lookout there's a ridge running south she likes to walk back to Elbow Pass and she showed us how it's done, using bolted iron cables for safety.

I was too woozy from the migraine to accompany Mark Hertenstein and Gordon Whirry as they topped a ledge and walked over to them, setting their packs down before climbing atop the ridge out of view from the saddle.

Gordon must not have secured his pack because it toppled off the ledge while he was walking the ridge.

Coming back down we began a search for the pack.

Gordon's thought was that it must not have fallen too far, so he went up from the trail below the cliffs.

Gordon in the steep cliffs above the trail looking for his fallen pack

Sam, Mark and I went down the trail and Sam spied the pack some 500 feet below.

This trail travels along a very steep slope, above and below.

I held my breath watching Gordon slowly, and carefully descend to the trail.  A false step or trip would have sent him quickly down the slope to his pack.

Mark decided it would descend the rocky slope and try to retrieve the pack.  Knowing Mark, I wasn't as concerned about his down climb as I had been about Gordon's.

He reached the pack and brought it down to where the trail had switchbacked.

He had slipped and fallen along the way down and scraped up his arm, but at least he was in one piece back on trail.

Then, after Gordon had gotten his pack from Mark, he fell backward on the trail, scraping himself up.

The trip from there was fairly uneventful until the final mile.

Up out of the brush we were attacked by a mother grouse who perceived us as a threat to her brood.

She squawked, spread her tail feathers, ruffled the feathers under he eyes and was generally as fierce a protector as I have seen.

It provided an interesting ending for our hike.

We figured the temperatures must have risen to the upper 70s by hike's end.  It was in the 90s when we got back to Great Falls.

Our biggest disappointment was the poor wildflower show.  There were patches of Indian Paintbrush, some vetch, only one Beargrass in bloom, and the lavender penstemon that usually trim the upper trail in profusion were sparse.

 Gone were snowfields in Honeymoon Basin and at the saddle beneath the peak, indicators of the hot, dry weather we've encountered.

Samsara showed us a photo of a smokejumper she had taken that morning descending into a fire west of Hoadley Reef on the western horizon opposite her lookout.

It looks like a long, hot and smoky fire season.