It is not the height of Granite Peak which makes it difficult, Colorado, Wyoming, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and California all have higher peaks. What makes Granite Peak so difficult, less than half of those attempting it make the summit, is the shear exposure of the approach and then the technical rock climbing in the final hour of the climb.
We chose to approach through Avalanche Lake up the Huckleberry drainage, which at 9,500 feet is well below the infamous Froze To Death plateau, where winds in excess of 100 miles per hour occur even in the summer and are often accompanied by snow or sleet.We arrive at the trail head 3 miles below Mystic Lake, get our 70 pound backpacks out of the car for the 12 mile trip in to base camp and start up the trail head. The climb to Mystic Lake takes us up just under 1,200 feet from our 6,400 foot elevation departure. It is three miles to the lake and then three miles of trail along its shores until we reach the Huckleberry drainage.
The Huckleberry drainage take us straight up another 3 miles to Princess Lake at 9,080 feet and another 1,500 feet higher. We pause along the shores of Princess to watch 2 to 3 pound cutthroat trout prowl the shores in search of insects. The journey up from Mystic Lake turns into a race and as we pause to have some water and catch our breath.
We hike another 2 miles of boulder strewn slopes scrambling up to 9,750 feet to Avalanche Lake. Granite Peak looks like an ominous fortress towering above us and the boulder field on the far side, which will be our route up, contains a house-sized boulder maze that can become a navigation and footing nightmare for the unindoctorinated. It made us wonder why we were not back inside the ceature comforts of our home in Red Lodge and the Montana real estate we have come to love.
We gave ourselves one day in, one day out, and three days to summit the peak. On the morning of our planned ascent it is raining and the wind on the Plateau was howling the night before from the west. Everybody is decidedly depressed by the weather.
It is recommended that you begin around 5 a.m. to safely give yourself time to reach the summit and get down before Granite's infamous afternoon storms hit. These can leave you stranded in your bivouc sack above 12,000 feet with wind chills well below zero, even in August. After breakfast we notice that the wind has shifted to the north and the temperature has dropped
significantly. My knowledge of Montana weather tells me that this means we likely will not have afternoon storms. I convince three others to try to make a late day run to the summit. We strap on our heart rate monitor watches, load up with water, food, bivouc sacks, and away we go at 10 a.m. Kraig Kempt, all 6 foot 5 inches, aka Rheinhold Krog, takes off at mach schnell and we navigate the boulder field and reach the Bivouc Saddle between Tempest and Granite in two short hours. Our heart rate monitors are peaking out. We take a short lunch break and then it is up the east ridge across scree fields to the Snowbridge.
The last hour of climbing Granite Peak requires your total attention, especially if you are unroped. There is a ton of exposure and potential falls of hundreds of feet occur in multiple locations. It is definitely "you fall, you die" climbing, so either don't fall or bring ropes because it is 5.4 to 5.5 technical route finding.
At 2 p.m. we reach the summit and can see that we are in the clear. The views are incrdible as hundreds of miles of Montana real estate sprawl before our eyes in every direction. We can even see deep into Wyoming from up here. We return to camp by 6:00 p.m. tired but very satisified. The four members who stayed behind can't believe we made it with such a late start and vow to go the next day. Unfortunately overnight it snows and rains and the summit becomes covered in veraglasse, which is essentially unclimbable as granite turns to slick ice. This group makes the Snowbridge but the final 750 feet to the summit are out of their reach.
The next day as we hike out and leave Granite behind to return to the creature comforts of our Montana real estate I wonder, at age 49, if I will be able to bring my daughters to this summit someday, which gives me motivation to continue to exercise and use my heart rate monitor in hopes that I can keep up as I head toward 60. Montana real estate is some of the most beautiful anywhere in the nation and this trip reminds me of why I have made a life here.
