I suppose this article could be titled "The Conquest of El Capitan". However, as I hammered in the last bolt and staggered over the rim, it was not at all clear to me who was conqueror and who was conquered: I do recall that El Cap seemed to be in much better condition than I was.
Warren Harding, from the American Alpine Journal about his ground-breaking ascent of El Capitan
I can't recall the first time I considered trying rock climbing. My parents raised me outside essentially, starting out by hauling me around in a kiddy-backpack in the summer and in a sled behind cross country skis in the winter. Dad really got into "peak bagging" in Glacier National Park keeping track of the summits he reached. When I was finally old enough (around 11) he led me up Flinsch Peak in the Two Medicine drainage. I was instantly hooked: being the highest point around, you can see for miles and experiencing travels in the high rock is incomparable. Inevitably though, this youngster wanted to be able to climb everything that he saw, including the smooth looking walls I could see from other peaks. The logical step was to start rock climbing to gain the technical skills to climb in the alpine environment and cut my teeth climbing on the chossy stone of Kila Crag my senior year in high school with some buddies from the wrestling team.
That was five years ago now, and I am pleased with the things I've been able to accomplish now. I started traditional lead climbing two years ago and was able to pretty much climb year round while going to school in Texas (and it was a good thing too since I couldn't ski as much as I wanted...). Bringing those experiences back home, I've been able to get my dad into rock climbing and teach him the necessary skills with the ultimate goal of climbing the five designated technical peaks in GNP. The past two summers, Dad was influential in getting us up Walton and Blackfoot with his glacier travel knowledge. Then the rock routes up Wilbur and Split fell in one weekend last summer.
The COYB Climbing Team on the summit of Pumpelly Spire. Do we look tired? 'Cause we were...
The apple never falls too far from the tree, but since I got into climbing first, Dad is a chip off the "young block," eh? Hence the name of our climbing team. We were feeling pretty bomb-proof this summer and ready to conquer anything even St. Nicholaus, the biggest challenge of the Five, but ran out of time and good weather. Thus our dreams sat in wait until this summer.
B7 Pillar and Pumpelly Spire
The quote above from Warren Harding quickly became real to us as we did a two day adventure on the East side of the park with the goal of summiting B7 and Pumpelly in sequential days. Neither are on the Glacier Mountaineering Society's original list of the five technical peaks, but are actually more difficult than any of them. As reasonable day trips (or so we thought), they would be a great shake-down to test our team's skills before attempting St. Nick.
Me at the start of the B7 climb. Pretty cool climbing through the Diorite Sill layer: super solid igneous rock with jams aplenty.
We drove over to Many Glacier early Friday morning and parked at the Iceberg Lake/Ptarmigan Tunnel trailhead. While we were getting ready, a black bear and two cubs tromped by in the trees on the edge of the parking lot. Glacier wildlife has an interesting side to it: they don't really feel threatened by people and thus you can see them acting "normally" in their habitat. The sow never seemed to care that we were even there, which was fine with me since I'm not a fan of using my pepper spray... We made quick work of the trail heading into the lake and navigated up the slope above toward Iceberg Notch. We hiked around the North side of the Ptarmigan Wall to the base of our climb: a 5.7 rated route up a weak point in the face. Dad and I climbed it in 2 pitches before scrambling to the top un-roped through class 3 terrain. The wind was pretty unbearable at the top so we snapped a couple of pictures and hurried off the summit, rapelled back to our packs, and hurried back to our truck for dinner and rest. We even got to meet my mom and her hiking buddy, who were also camping in Many Glacier, to eat dinner and enjoy a celebratory Cold Smoke bought in the campground general store.
The next day, still feeling unstoppable, we drove to Two Medicine lake and caught the boat over to the west side of the lake. To approach the base of the Pillar, you hike up the trail toward Upper Two Medicine Lake, and then veer off to the right up a grassy slope to the face on the eastern most point of the ridge that stretches out from Mt. Helen. Someone has scratched an arrow into the chimney that the route follows giving you confidence that you're at least starting in the same spot as a previous party. The ensuing climb was upper-class, sustained 5.7 for 7 pitches, which included two quick hip belays as Dad followed. We reached the summit after about 6 1/2 hours at 5:50, and quickly made the 7 rapels back to our stashed gear at the bottom by 8:30, scrambling to reach the trail again by night fall. We ended up hiking the trail back to the parking lot in another 2 1/2 hours by head lamp feeling very much like the conquered rather than conquerers of any mountain.
A topo from our climb up the Pillar.
St. Nicholaus
We almost ran out of time again this year to climb St. Nick. With a late starting alpine season due to a cooler, wetter May and June, then climbing B7 and Pumpelly in August, and bow season starting the first of September our dream was going to have to wait yet another year. However, a week of high pressure moved in and we suddenly had a gorgeous first weekend of October. What better to celebrate a nice Indian Summer than with some climbing, right?
Our route in to climb the most iconic technical peak of Glacier followed Muir Creek, none of the 6 mile approach being by man-made trail. We followed a series of elk trails in on Friday morning after fording the Middle Fork of the Flathead River, up and around a ridge and camped at a beautiful small lake nestled in among small trees on the edge of a boulderfield very reminiscent of Longs Peak in Colorado. The next morning we trudged up to the Great Notch, dropped our packs, roped up, and sent one of the coolest mulit-pitch climbs I've ever done. The first 30 feet were the steepest and hardest to protect but were some of the most enjoyable, with some really airy exposure. The rest of the climb was lower fifth class climbing with the exception of a cool 25 foot section of hand and fist jamming. In all, we climbed 4 roped pitches and then rapelled 3 (we carried another 60 meter rope with us to get full-length rapels). After some unfortunate SNAFUs while rapelling, which took more time than really endangered us, we didn't get back to camp until 3:30 and still faced a 5 hour hike back to the River crossing. To our dismay we were deep in the bottom of Muir Creek when it got dark at 8 o'clock slowing our pace to a crawl.
Dad following up a superb section of rock on St. Nick, pitch 3.
While hunting this Fall, I've really begun to have a Love-Hate relationship with elk, but our St. Nick epic has definitely helped by appreciation of them. We were having to hop the creek back and forth to find ground to travel on and becoming worried that one of us was going to fall and hurt ourselves on the slick rock. After saying, "Just a little further" about 50 times until 9:30 we sat down for a final snack break and seriously contemplated bivouacking until it got light again. However, I had remembered that there was coulee that we crossed on the elk trails I mentioned above and saw on my GPS that we had stopped right next to that small drainage. Thankfully we were able to find the trail again and started to really be able to move again high above the creek bottom. It was still extremely difficult to find the trail back down to the level of the river again, and we hiked up and down the hillside several times getting cliffed-out. Finally we found a steep elk trail that led straight to the mouth of Muir Creek: we never would have made it without the elk! I was so tired that I stripped down to my underwear, waded across the river, and walked half-naked the last half mile to the truck.
Dad and I on our fifth technical peak.
It is interesting to think that the epic of St. Nick was really found in the approach and escape, not the climbing itself. The rock from the Notch was fantastic: relatively solid (by Glacier's standards), held protection well, and had great exposure. After all our technical climbing training, practice, and preparation the pinnacle of the summit attempt went like a breeze. It was the bushwacking, carrying heavy packs, and off-trail navigation that worked us over; stuff that we've been doing for years before even thinking we would ever get into climbing vertical rock. But maybe that's the way of things: you can never take things for granted in the mountains. And even when you think you've got it made, the climb in the bag, and the peak conquered, it is the mountain that will always have the last laugh.
