I don't have a lot that's interesting to report this week. It's still too hot. We got a couple severe thunderstorms in the area last week, which cooled things off for a couple of days, but it's back in the 90's again. As I type, it's 96 degrees outside. I sat on the trail next to 5 goats (including 2 kids) on Friday, using their technique of laying on the section of the Highline trail where the wind blows hardest to cool off. It worked out for all of us. Then I had to supervise a bighorn sheep in the Logan Pass parking lot so people didn't do anything stupid. One visitor told me they had "beautiful eyes," which is the opposite of what most of us rangers think. We think they have frightening, stupid eyes that don't tell a person very much about what's going on it that thing's unpredictable head.
I led Siyeh Pass twice this week, and I was a little burned out from that. I was physically tired all week partly because I never fully recovered from climbing last week. Given the hot temperatures, I spent my weekend laying low and driving to Columbia Falls, MT and Cardston, AB to get groceries and a haircut during the most unbearably hot parts of the day. That way, I could at least sit in my car's air conditioning for a while. Columbia Falls is (only) 65 air-conditioned miles from St. Mary, and the best source of groceries nearby, even if it takes longer to get there than to, say, Cut Bank, where the 2nd best grocery store is.
Now I wish I had stopped at Dairy Queen back in Cardston.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
It's A Long Way Down
On Sunday, I climbed Siyeh Mountain. It's very satisfying to be able to say that, but to do so was a laborious 12-hour journey that seemed all too dangerous at so many moments.
Siyeh Mountain is one of the five peaks over 10,000 feet within Glacier, and its geographic location is such that one can see almost every major peak in the park, well across the state to the east and west, and far into B.C. and Alberta. Plus, Siyeh Mountain's north face is the largest escarpment in the lower 48 states, something like a 4,500 foot vertical drop from the summit. Needless to say, this made for a tense stay at the top of the peak and some nightmares/flashbacks as I was trying to fall asleep at night. I actually had to sit up in bed a couple of times to make sure I was actually in my bed, not on the mountain, and only fell asleep on my stomach, clutching my pillow.
The ascent is pretty difficult and dangerous. The easiest part of the climb is hiking up the trail the first 2.5 miles before branching off and bushwhacking through the sub-alpine fir trees to the base of the mountain. After that, we started up an alluvial fan at the base of a drainage that we were told was climbable. A few hundred feet up that and we hit the limestone rock and began the real ascent. Finding steps and hand-holds, we worked our way up to the part I had dreaded most, the Purcell sill layer, a diorite rock that is the only igneous rock in the park.
The sill layer was where I got stuck last year with extreme exposure (read: make one slip and you will fall to your doom), and I had not been looking forward to it. The good thing about the diorite when compared to the limestone is that it is more solid and less likely to be loose to pull or stand on. The bad thing about the sill is that because it is more resilient rock, it is also more vertical.
Several times going through the sill, I had to pause to look back and wonder what it was I thought I was doing there. Usually, it is not helpful to look behind oneself when going up a steep pitch, but it's also important to take mental notes on where you came up so you can find your way down. We made our way through the sill with only one minor inconvenience, a shelf I couldn't lift myself onto that caused us to change our route slightly. Something about having nothing to hold onto and a heavy pack on my back pulling me back down the mountain while trying to go up a near-vertical wall did not sit well with my brain, which kept telling me I was going to fall backwards.
Above the sill layer and the marble-like metamorphic rock on either side of it, we reached the scree slopes that led to the summit. Although at a glance, the sill layer appears to be about halfway up the mountain, it turns out to be only about 1/3 of the way. It was a long walk through the loose rock to the top of the mountain, weaving around a large snowfield near the top of the peak, and I started to succumb to acute altitude sickness somewhere above 9000 feet. Although I hike Siyeh Pass often, once or twice a week, and that trail goes to 8000', I have never had a problem with the altitude other than breathing harder. On the mountain, however, I started getting light-headed and nauseous. I was unable to eat my granola bar for energy because my body would barely let me swallow it. But I pressed on, determined to reach my goal, although at a slower pace.
As we reached the uppermost rock layer on the mountain, the red-rocked snowslip formation, the loose rock gave way to more solid rock to the summit. Having walked up the ridge of the mountaintop to this point, we had startling views off both sides of the mountain at the same time, down to the Preston Park area off one side and the far side of Piegan Pass off the other. As I clambered through the solid rock, aware we were reaching the summit, I looked up to see my climbing partner Mike looking back at me. He hadn't really done that all day, and I knew the view was going to be scary, but I could tell from the grin on his face that something was up.
I had followed a slightly different path toward the top, and I got a view down the cliff to Cracker Lake through a narrow slit in the rock, and the sight made my knees weak.
I guess in my previous mountain climbing experiences, I felt something more along the lines of satisfaction, awe, and amazement, but this time is was something very different. This emotion was more along the lines of terror. Yeah, I know I'm a big tough ranger-man who isn't afraid of bears or mountain lions or Harley riders, but this place was unreal and horrifying. I wrote as much in the register, a small stack of papers shoved in a plastic bottle and stowed in a rock on the summit: "This has been the most terrifying and amazing thing I have ever done." The scary thing about the summit was not that it was 10,000 feet above sea level, or that it was a narrow ridge. The frightening thing was that it dropped straight off the one side over 4,000 feet. Not just really steep. Straight. Vertical.
I didn't have plans on what to eat for dinner because I honestly wasn't sure if I would be surviving that long. The descent took longer than the ascent as we had to find our way down the steep pitches we climbed up fairly easily on the way up. I was relieved to reach the bottom of the mountain and to get back in the trees, and even more relieved to fill my water bottles at the stream since I was out of water.
Aside from a few scratches and scrapes, I survived unscathed. The only casualty was both socks I had on my right foot were cut all the way through by a rock that made its way into my boot. I survived Siyeh Mountain!
Siyeh Mountain is one of the five peaks over 10,000 feet within Glacier, and its geographic location is such that one can see almost every major peak in the park, well across the state to the east and west, and far into B.C. and Alberta. Plus, Siyeh Mountain's north face is the largest escarpment in the lower 48 states, something like a 4,500 foot vertical drop from the summit. Needless to say, this made for a tense stay at the top of the peak and some nightmares/flashbacks as I was trying to fall asleep at night. I actually had to sit up in bed a couple of times to make sure I was actually in my bed, not on the mountain, and only fell asleep on my stomach, clutching my pillow.
The ascent is pretty difficult and dangerous. The easiest part of the climb is hiking up the trail the first 2.5 miles before branching off and bushwhacking through the sub-alpine fir trees to the base of the mountain. After that, we started up an alluvial fan at the base of a drainage that we were told was climbable. A few hundred feet up that and we hit the limestone rock and began the real ascent. Finding steps and hand-holds, we worked our way up to the part I had dreaded most, the Purcell sill layer, a diorite rock that is the only igneous rock in the park.
The sill layer was where I got stuck last year with extreme exposure (read: make one slip and you will fall to your doom), and I had not been looking forward to it. The good thing about the diorite when compared to the limestone is that it is more solid and less likely to be loose to pull or stand on. The bad thing about the sill is that because it is more resilient rock, it is also more vertical.
Several times going through the sill, I had to pause to look back and wonder what it was I thought I was doing there. Usually, it is not helpful to look behind oneself when going up a steep pitch, but it's also important to take mental notes on where you came up so you can find your way down. We made our way through the sill with only one minor inconvenience, a shelf I couldn't lift myself onto that caused us to change our route slightly. Something about having nothing to hold onto and a heavy pack on my back pulling me back down the mountain while trying to go up a near-vertical wall did not sit well with my brain, which kept telling me I was going to fall backwards.
Above the sill layer and the marble-like metamorphic rock on either side of it, we reached the scree slopes that led to the summit. Although at a glance, the sill layer appears to be about halfway up the mountain, it turns out to be only about 1/3 of the way. It was a long walk through the loose rock to the top of the mountain, weaving around a large snowfield near the top of the peak, and I started to succumb to acute altitude sickness somewhere above 9000 feet. Although I hike Siyeh Pass often, once or twice a week, and that trail goes to 8000', I have never had a problem with the altitude other than breathing harder. On the mountain, however, I started getting light-headed and nauseous. I was unable to eat my granola bar for energy because my body would barely let me swallow it. But I pressed on, determined to reach my goal, although at a slower pace.
As we reached the uppermost rock layer on the mountain, the red-rocked snowslip formation, the loose rock gave way to more solid rock to the summit. Having walked up the ridge of the mountaintop to this point, we had startling views off both sides of the mountain at the same time, down to the Preston Park area off one side and the far side of Piegan Pass off the other. As I clambered through the solid rock, aware we were reaching the summit, I looked up to see my climbing partner Mike looking back at me. He hadn't really done that all day, and I knew the view was going to be scary, but I could tell from the grin on his face that something was up.
I had followed a slightly different path toward the top, and I got a view down the cliff to Cracker Lake through a narrow slit in the rock, and the sight made my knees weak.
I didn't have plans on what to eat for dinner because I honestly wasn't sure if I would be surviving that long. The descent took longer than the ascent as we had to find our way down the steep pitches we climbed up fairly easily on the way up. I was relieved to reach the bottom of the mountain and to get back in the trees, and even more relieved to fill my water bottles at the stream since I was out of water.
Aside from a few scratches and scrapes, I survived unscathed. The only casualty was both socks I had on my right foot were cut all the way through by a rock that made its way into my boot. I survived Siyeh Mountain!
Friday, July 13, 2007
Withering Heat
It's not supposed to be this hot. Temperatures are about 15 degrees above normal for this time of year, maxing out at about 90 degrees the past couple of weeks. Normally, I'd expect this kind of hot weather for one week before it starts to cool off in the fall.
As a result, the grass is dry and brown. What's weirder, the flowers that have been early all year are going to seed. Even the huckleberries are starting to ripen in the St. Mary Valley. I stopped to eat a few today.
Last week, Amber and I went to the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in Alberta, which was pretty neat.
The most surprising thing there was that there were three peregrine falcons using the cliffs to loft themselves high into the air, and two of them flew right over my head. How close? Close enough that I couldn't get a picture of them because I was too busy trying to decide if they were going to sink their talons into my eye sockets.
The trip to the jump site was also interesting because I got to learn a little bit about food sources for the Blackfeet, although I was not tempted to dig up the balsamroot in Two Dog Flats to sample a bit. Instead, we ate at the Cattle Baron in Babb, which took care of my need for a slab of meat the size of my leg for a little while.
I hiked Siyeh Pass again this week, and the flowers are quite incredible. To list them all would take some time. Notables included pink elephant head and laurels.
I will not be at Logan Pass this week, which is kind of a bummer. I heard there are ptarmigans, weasels, and wolverines all running around up there.
My plans for this weekend are not clear yet. I may go climb a mountain on Sunday, but I am not sure which one yet. I still want to tackle Siyeh mountain, one of the 5 peaks in the park that's over 10,000 feet, and a mountain which defeated me last year. I always worry about running out of water, but that isn't a big concern yet.
Speaking of water, St. Mary Falls's flow has reduced to flowing off the side of the lower shelf, something I had not seen until late 2006 before. That's a little alarming, since it is a sign that the snow is melting very fast. We could be in for a very dry August and September. Out here, that means fire, and I don't need that excitement again.
As a result, the grass is dry and brown. What's weirder, the flowers that have been early all year are going to seed. Even the huckleberries are starting to ripen in the St. Mary Valley. I stopped to eat a few today.
Last week, Amber and I went to the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in Alberta, which was pretty neat.
The most surprising thing there was that there were three peregrine falcons using the cliffs to loft themselves high into the air, and two of them flew right over my head. How close? Close enough that I couldn't get a picture of them because I was too busy trying to decide if they were going to sink their talons into my eye sockets.
The trip to the jump site was also interesting because I got to learn a little bit about food sources for the Blackfeet, although I was not tempted to dig up the balsamroot in Two Dog Flats to sample a bit. Instead, we ate at the Cattle Baron in Babb, which took care of my need for a slab of meat the size of my leg for a little while.
I hiked Siyeh Pass again this week, and the flowers are quite incredible. To list them all would take some time. Notables included pink elephant head and laurels.
I will not be at Logan Pass this week, which is kind of a bummer. I heard there are ptarmigans, weasels, and wolverines all running around up there.
My plans for this weekend are not clear yet. I may go climb a mountain on Sunday, but I am not sure which one yet. I still want to tackle Siyeh mountain, one of the 5 peaks in the park that's over 10,000 feet, and a mountain which defeated me last year. I always worry about running out of water, but that isn't a big concern yet.
Speaking of water, St. Mary Falls's flow has reduced to flowing off the side of the lower shelf, something I had not seen until late 2006 before. That's a little alarming, since it is a sign that the snow is melting very fast. We could be in for a very dry August and September. Out here, that means fire, and I don't need that excitement again.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Return to Siyeh, Backpack to No Name Lake
On a return training mission on Siyeh Pass, we encountered far less wildlife than the previous run. Wind chill at the pass was probably 15-25 degrees, so we huddled behind the rocks out of the wind and ate lunch. The snow was still treacherous on the way down into the Baring Basin, which made the going slow but fun.
Amber arrived on Saturday. On Sunday we went backpacking to No Name Lake in the Two Medicine valley, a 4.5 mile walk down the lake and then up the Dawson Pass trail. The campground only had two sites available, only recently uncovered by the melting snow. We found some moose tracks by the lake, but the only animals we saw were the pikas living in the eroded rock at the base of the near-vertical Pumpelly Pillar.
Two Medicine Lake, at the beginning of our hike
Amber arrived on Saturday. On Sunday we went backpacking to No Name Lake in the Two Medicine valley, a 4.5 mile walk down the lake and then up the Dawson Pass trail. The campground only had two sites available, only recently uncovered by the melting snow. We found some moose tracks by the lake, but the only animals we saw were the pikas living in the eroded rock at the base of the near-vertical Pumpelly Pillar.
No Name Lake
I fell asleep to the sound of the Swainson's thrush above the tent, but apparently Amber did not sleep terribly well. She woke me up at 5:20 AM and declared her desire to hike up to Dawson Pass. I needed to sleep for about three more hours before I could consider such a request. We ended up hiking to Twin Falls instead, which was (thankfully) downhill.
Beargrass blooming on the Dawson Pass Trail
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