Granite Peak MT

[matt_warfield]

This is a tale with not much climbing content.

 

Dates are in the 70's.

 

Granite Peak is the highest in Montana and had always been a goal of mine. While not 5.15 or rated R it has its challenges. It is a long ways in, has a snow bridge and the usual routefinding difficulties associated with the alpine.

 

First attempt: A friend and I head in determined to make our way without a stove (all cold food in a bag) or a tent (sleeping bags and tarp only) on appropriately named Froze to Death Plateau. Trying to be green and be young and stupid all at the same time. It's not hard. As long as you are young.

 

We turned back.

 

I returned with my fiance (first of my three ex-wives) and a bible thumper who insisted that he did not appreciate me sharing a tent with a woman I was not married to yet and also insisted that Granite Peak was only a few thousand years old due to creation, despite carbon dating and other scientific nonsense. A great partnership was born.

 

Desite our differences and the fact he couldn't belay worth crap we made it to the summit and then accompanied the oldest man yet to summit Grannite (since surpassed) down the "easy" way (4th class) to safety.

 

Then I went to bed with my girlfriend and God didn't smite me. Yet.

 

 

Edited November 7, 2012 by matt_warfield

[John_Scurlock]

It is a long ways in

 

 

yes it is, no matter how you get there: Granite

 

if there is a god, perhaps it is using women to smite you.. & if so... you are not alone..!

 

 

[dougd]

Beautiful image of the N Face John...

 

Granite Peak is definitely worth a look IMHO. This is a wild, tough part of the country. It is a long ways in to this peak and that's part of what makes it special. Places like this are in short supply in the lower 48 anymore.

 

sigh

 

d

[matt_warfield]

Thanks for the pic. The snow bridge is easily seen on the left side of the peak. It is the location where the inexperienced get "alpinitis".

 

The Absaroka/Beartooth Wilderness is a wonderful place. Couple Granite Peak with Mt. Cowan and it is the best time you can have on 4th class to great summits.

 

And I can't help being smitten with women despite the possibility of being smited.

Edited November 8, 2012 by matt_warfield

[Water]

rambled up to huckleberry lake (far end of mystic lake, then south) and froze-to-death-plateau with my wife this summer for a quick night of backpacking before seeing yellowstone at the tail end of a trip hangin out at a bud's ranch up in lewistown.

 

really impressed with the area-spectacular. thanks for sharing your memories mr. warfield

[John_Scurlock]

Beautiful image of the N Face John...

 

Granite Peak is definitely worth a look IMHO. This is a wild, tough part of the country. It is a long ways in to this peak and that's part of what makes it special. Places like this are in short supply in the lower 48 anymore.

 

sigh

 

d

 

That was shot during a three week stretch where I flew into the Beartooths, the Wind Rivers, the Sawtooth Wilderness, Borah, Glacier National Park, the Crazies, the Swan range, the Bob Marshall Wilderness, the Centennial mountains... the Cabinets, the Mission mountains... all starting the day after my wife moved out... you can roll in obsession, passion, angst, sleeplessness, caffeine, climbing, aviation, long empty stretches of nowheresville, and some of the greatest wild mountainous terrain in the lower forty-eight.... I will never get over it.

[bwrts]

ah yes the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness and Granite Peak is such a wild place. Saw my first real grizzly bear swimming around in Huckleberry lake on my wife's and I failed attempt (she had seen many spending her younger days in WY during summer break). yes we turned around because the bear was headed for our path of ascent since we had neither horse, dog or gun. they are so f'n big!

can't wait to go back. endless amazing buttresses and such solitude! thanks for the story and pic to remind me of round 2.