Victory Weekend

With midterms on their way, and the ominous Butte winter not far distant, I've been feeling the need to capitalize on every nice weekend. Its a good thing then, that this weekend was stellar. 

On Saturday, the 3rd annual Butte Boulder Bash brought climbers from though out MT to the trailer boulders, on the east side of the batholith. Big Props to the Backwaters crew for organizing the event. This was my first time in attendance, and I was super impressed with the organization, mellow atmosphere, quality problems and piles of shwag. Highlight was seeing tons of familiar faces from across the state, and  trading beta over far too many microbrews.  

 Unfortunately, I was too busy climbing to do much picture taking, but I'm sure other blogs will give a better synapsis anyway. Here's a pic of Jarred (former room mate and Bozemanian crusher) Pickens dispatching "Blood Feather," a neat v6.




On Sunday, Ross, Kiersa and myself somehow managed to get an early start on the morning, and bombed westward over Homestake pass to the Anacondas. After a mandatory (hangover-killing) egg McMuffin stop at the golden arches we pulled into the Seymore Creek trailhead, with the intent of hiking Mt Evans and Mt Howe in a loop, via their connecting ridge. This was a trip I'd been scoping all season, so I was excited to attempt it before the first major snowfall.

The plan was to do the hike as counter clockwise loop, crossing Howe's SE ridge, and the Sullivan Creek drainage, before gaining the E Ridge of Evans and looping our way back.

 Ross, obviously feeling like a million bucks, as we traversed Sullivan creek drainage to gain Evans East ridge.

 Mt. Howe 10,472' (at left) and Mt. Evans 10,641' (at right). Our route followed this skyline almost exactly.

 The Anacondas can get a little more rugged than you'd expect.

 Evans as seen from Sullivan ridge.

 Ross heading up the ridge, with a really cool and huge lateral moraine in the background.

 The fun class 3 section of the ascent. Pretty Casual. 

 Looking west towards Greatwhite Peak, from the summit of Evans. Mt. Powell (and the Flynnt Creek Range) is in the background)

 Looking south into the heart of the A-P wilderness from Evans.

 Ross opting for the 5th class descent.

 Looking back at our route off of Evans.

 Group shot from the saddle.

 The Seymore Lake cirque, with West Goat Peak (10,793' at left) and Warren Peak (10,463' at right) poking up in the distance. 

Mt. Howe and our route from the saddle.

Kiersa and Ross on the Summit of Howe. Georgetown lake is down to the right.

Looking from Howe back to Evans.

Kiersa on the long descent back to Seymore creek.

Overall it was well over 5,000' elevation gain and probably about sixteen miles. The loop, the views, the scrambling made this probably my favorite trip in the Pintlers. I thought I would've tapped the range out after this trip, but after catching sight of Greatwhite peak, I'm sure I'll head back. 

Daydreams: Brought to you from the Montana Tech Library

Once again, Montana Tech (my lovely university) has been recognized as one of the top ten schools, in the United States, for student dissatisfaction. (To be fair, all ten schools were either fellow engineering schools or military academies... neither of which generally enjoy a reasonable guy/girl ratio.)

I am no exception. Calc III is roughly a billion time less fun than scamming on ladies in art appreciation, at the good-ol' Uof M. 

Instead, I find myself staring out the library window at the Anacondas, procrastinating and making tick lists. 

 Peaks climbed (at left) and on the agenda (at right), organized by region. Compliments of my Environmental Sampling notebook. 

 Howe, Evans and Haggin respectively. As seen from the Natural Resources building on campus. 

Bagging Howe and Evans in tandem via their connecting ridge-line has been on my mind all summer.  While I should have been doing physics I pulled up the topo... Looks good to me.

Tomorrow the high temp for Butte is 45 degrees, which may well mark the full transition to climbing season... Sending temps.

The Goats.

 West Goat Peak is another mountain that's been calling my name ever since I moved to Butte. You can really only go into a range so many times before you want to bag the highpoint. At 10,973, that happens to be W. Goat. 

As I drove down the Big Hole, I was excited to notice that a night rainstorm seemed finally quelled the smoke. The sun was out, the aspens were golden, and W. Goat was looming over the valley south of Wise River... and it was at that moment I realized that I'd forgotten my god-damn camera. 

Overall the high point of the Anaconda's was a big day. Not technical at all, but quite long. I'm not sure on the mileage, but I'd bet on upwards of sixteen (I did it as a loop bagging East Goat in the process) with 4,500 of elevation. 

I ripped these photos from Summitpost... the quality blows. Sorry. 

West and East Goat as seen from Warren peak.

 Looking towards the summit from the Lost Lake cirque. 

Enough hiking for the weekend. The Lord's day is for bouldering.

Highland Traverse

A flaked partner and low funds in the bank account had me scrambling to find a last-minute adventure a little closer to town this weekend. Initially,  I'd been itching to bag Mt. Evan in the Anacondas, but with the puppy in tow, I decided to keep things a bit mellower. Instead, the Highland ridge traverse was selected. Three 10,000+ peaks all above tree-line within spitting distance of Butte. 

 Table mtn (center) and Red mtn (right) seen through the haze from the Butte Walmart, when I stopped for the morning grub. 

 The route requires heading up the old road to the abandoned Red mtn lookout (seen here) and following the ridge up to the summit of Red (in the distance).

Looking towards Butte from the lookout.

 Great view from the can.  

 A look at the traverse (This pre-smokey pic is taken from the summit of Red Mtn last July). 

 After descending the opposite side of Red, the route requires summiting Peak 10,136 (Second tallest in the Highlands) on excellent goat trails. 

 Looking down into a moonscape cirque. 

 After Peak 10,136, the geology changed dramatically, from sharp volcanic scree to alpine tundra. The plateau summit of Table mtn at back. 

 Emerald lake: The headwaters of the Clark Fork (and depending on how you measure the Columbia).

 Summit cairn and a weather station on Table's broad summit.

Looking back at the route. Peak 10,136 at left, and Red at right. 

First round of exams is now upon me, so the only mountains I'll probably interact with in the near future, will be out the library window. 

Salude!

Haggin through the hellfire

I've had my eye on Mt. Haggin,  more or less, the entire time I've been living in Butte. It dominates the skyline to the west, and is a constant distraction out the library window. Stuck in town for the weekend due to an unfortunately timed chem test, I decided that Saturday would be my one day of redemption. ...Which means I woke up hungover to a post-apocalyptic smokey hell-scape, and had to stop for coffee, an egg McMuffin, and lunch supplies. This resulted in a departure from my vehicle at approximately 10:30, which is generally considered an alpine start by Buttian standards. 

The peak itself was actually pretty cool. 14 miles with, according to Summitpost, with over 5,000 feet of elevation gain. The hike literally begins in Anaconda (you park in a church parking lot. Amen!) and follows an old road to the damned Hearst lake, the town's water supply.  

 Norma, leading the way through the aspens just above town.

 An old brick structure nestled below Hearst lake.

 Hearst and its damn. The Larches are already turning gold up high!!!

 After reaching Hearst the hike involved a bushwack to a higher southern cirque, which allegedly was home to a smaller lake. When I got up there she was bone dry.

From the cirque the route involved traveling up the prominent NE gully to gain the summit ridge. Some hardy oldtimer made his miners cabin directly along my path.

The true summit as seen from the ridge.  

 Norma investigating the world's largest summit cairn. 

Looking towards Evans and Howe peaks through the haze. 

 Pika!

 Red sky on the hike out. 

Hopefully West Goat peak is next.

Torrey Lake and a bunch of Pioneer Rock.

Turns out moving out of your apartment really blows. Especially, if you're dedicated to getting your security deposit back. After multiple days of scrubbing goo out of my fridge I decided that wilderness was much needed. The only problem was I decided this at around 4pm on Saturday. Which I arrogantly decided was not going to stop me form going backpacking. Which in turn meant I didn't leave my car for Torrey Lake until 6:30pm. ....Yep, hiked by headlamp and sent my tent up in the dark. 

With that said, the Pioneers are very cool and relatively untrafficked mountains (I only saw one other party the entire time and had the entire lake basin to myself). Torrey Lake is nestled high between Tweedy and Torrey Mountains, the tallest Montana peaks outside the greater Yellowstone and only 11,000 footers west of I-15. 

I hoped to bag one of the peaks, but unfortunately my puppy Norma was a wuss and appeared incapable of technical scrambling, and I didn't have the heart to leave her as cougar bait by the lake. 

With that said the lake was rad, and the mountains lived up to the claim made in the old Cafferty guide that the southern Pioneers hold the largest quantity of untested granite in the state. 

 The hike in.

An epic buttress. 

Another one. 

Last light on tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum. Two stellar spires on Tweedy's east ridge.  

Tweedy 

Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum again, with the lake below for scale. 

My tent in front of Torrey.

Hopefully I'll be back for the peaks.