Good climbing around Trapper Peak?

[Jake_Gano]

Who knows of any? I was in there awhile back (Oct 05) and saw lots of possiblities, on Trapper, N. Trapper, Trapper Creek. So are there any know routes? What about alpine ice on the peaks?

Jake

[Bug]

Jake,

Go up N Trapper cr with ten days of food and trad gear. Take extra rap slings.

You will not be dissappointed.

Nothing much is documented on paper but there are still a lot of untouched lines up there. You will not know wether you are on one of those or a second ascent unless you find a pin or two from the seventies and eighties. With todays gear it will be a frigin party. When I was up there, friends had just come out. We thought we had died and gone to heaven.

N Trapper has the standard N face rt (5.9 crux on slab with a lot of exposure) and there are at least two other lines that have been done on that face. The West face is a scramble that a friend and I free-soloed in 86. A lot like Urlicks Coulior on Stuart. There will not be much ice up there now but early and late climbing can be very nice.

The granite is alpine with large sections of high quality.

Some of the buttresses on the south side of N Trapper Crk are stellar. Alex Lowe, Marvin McDonald, Mike Kellog, and others have been up there so if you pick an obvious line it will probably be a second ascent. But no one will ever know.

Take pics and post a TR.

[Argus]

There's some beta in Ron Brunckhorst's Alpine Ice and Rock Guide To Southwest & Central Montana. It's not a very good book, but currently the only thing out there. I saw that Jo Jo is putting out a climbing guide to the Missoula area that will include the Trapper Peak area. On his web site it says the book is due out in September.

 

[Jake_Gano]

Bug,

Thanks for the info. That's about what I expected to hear. When I hiked through there I was amazed at the amount of seemingly virgin granite. When I was there in Oct there was definately some ice forming up.

 

Argus,

I don't know what to think about a new guidebook for that area. I'm not one of those old foggies that shuns guidebooks. I think a good guidebook can be a great service to an area, but a poor guidebook can be a disservice. I don't own Brunkhort's rock guide, though I have flipped through it, and I do have Brunkhort's ice guide and I think it's a great guidebook. When it comes to guidebooks less is more. Too many glossy route overlays and pitch by pitch descriptions widdles climbing down from great adventures in the mountains to connecting the dots on a topo. I think Mr. Josephson's waterfall ice guide is exemplary; Winter Dance is a little polished for my tastes.

 

I think that the northern rockies are desperately in need of a CAG-esque guidebook. It should cover the Sawtooths, Selkirks, Glacier NP, the Bitterroots, and all the other 'lesser' ranges in between. It should be comprehensive (or, as much as possilbe) of all the long traditional climbs and ice climbs you can find but still be tastifully ambiguous. The Tom Lopez guidebook to Idaho could be great but unfortunately misses the mark. It's obviously written for peakbaggers, and if you pulled out all the class 1 or 2 'climbs' you'd be left with about twenty pages of real climbing. A lot of good climbing (like Slick Rock) is ommitted, and faces like Chimney Rock and Elephant Perch are shown with only a few routes, despite actually have dozens. It also arbitrarely stops at the Idaho border, despite great climbing just over the border in Mt (Cabinets, Bitterroots, Beaverheads) and NE Oregon (Wallowas). I can't rag on the book too much, he is just writing towards a different audience.

 

The new Bitterroot guidebook shows that it includes Kootanie and other sport/single pitch trad areas. There is a new Selkirk guidebook on the press right now; I wonder if that, like the old, will include both long/alpine routes and local crags?

 

The problem I have including both cragging areas and long routes in the same guide is that I end up with ten guidebooks, each of which I am interested in about ten percent of. This would be akin to putting Barney's Rubble in the CAG. I think that the guidebook authors should take a cue from the Northwest. Put all of the big destination routes in one big guide like the CAG, then put all of the hike ups and small crags into a smaller local guidebook. After all, hike ups and craggin is just training for the real deal, no?

 

Ok, I think I'm done. I'm getting all worked up and in need of a cold one. I'm out like my fashion.

 

 

 

[Argus]

Jake - I agree with your less is more perspective. I like the fact that a lot of the guide is vague. The problem I have with Brunckhorst's guide is that if you are going to into detail about a route, then you should at least make it accurate. It seems like a lot of the beta he uses come 3rd hand and gets lost in translation from my experience.

 

P.S. I think you need 2 beers.