Granite Peak, Montana

Bob decided that he wanted to try a different route up Granite Peak, the Southwest Couloir. The "normal" route comes in from the north via Froze-to-Death plateau. We looked at the information on SummitPost. There we noticed that someone, Vince, had recently climbed the route. I emailed Vince and he shared his pictures with us- which was very helpful.

Granite Peak is in the Beartooth-Absaroka Wilderness, just north-east of the boundary of Yellowstone National Park. This area is very rugged, and quite wild. Most of the trails we used were use-trails at best. There were no signs. And in the high country, there were either no trails or just an occasional goat track to follow. Make sure you have a good map, and we found the altimeter very useful. Even so, you can spend a lot of energy trying to second-guess the cliffs.

This map (5Mb .pdf) shows the route we would follow if we were going to repeat the route. Red is the better route, blue is the route we used on the way in.

We had a lot of fun trying to find the trailhead. As stated before, no signs. And SummitPost had the mileage wrong. Fortunately, I had found a snippet on a Forest Service web site that finally got us there, where we parked at about 8800'. We changed and started walking at about 2pm.

We followed the SummitPost beta on the way in, walking past Lady of the Lake and up Zimmer Creek. We hit the junction of Zimmer Creek and Broadwater River in about an hour, then proceeded up Zimmer Creek.

You leave Zimmer Creek at about 9000' to climb what the locals called Heartbreak Hill. It's fairly steep and ascends about 1000' and then the trail just quits. This was the route recommended on SummitPost.

When you get to that point, you are looking down on Aero Lake. Taking only two hours so far, we were very pleased with our time. But from here on, things got slow. Our route took us out through miles of boulders just like those you see between Tom and I.

After an hour of boulder-hopping and scrambling up and down rock ribs, we still were not all the way around Aero Lake. The shadows were getting long and we were feeling tired.

Finally at about 6:30, we made camp at Lone Elk Lake (10,200'). We had hoped to get all the way into the Sky Top drainage, but we were hungry and pooped. Although it had been comfortably warm all afternoon, as soon as the sun went down, the temperature dropped.

Later this evening, just before dark, we were visited by several goats that perched on the rock right above the tent. Later yet, they came briefly down to the tent to scavenge- looking out under the edge of the test, Bob said he could see their feet within arms reach.

The next morning we got underway as soon as it was light enough to navigate, about 7:15. Here Bob and Tom pose above Rough Lake.

The red line shows our route up the south face. You clamber up a very loose scree field to a solid slab. You traverse left under the slab until a hidden gully, or couloir, appears that slants up to the right. At the top of the couloir, you scramble around a ridge to the actual summit ridge, then move right to the true summit. The following pictures show some details.

Here's Tom near the bottom of the hidden couloir. The terrain in the picture is fairly typical of the 800 feet of elevation remaining to the summit- some loose talus, and a little scrambling over boulder-sized steps. But generally without any exposure. Also, the three of us had little to no problem with rolling rocks.

We did see some rappel slings at a few points, but would have to guess they were put there in inclement conditions. We did not carry a rope, and saw no need to do so if the rock is dry and you stay on the route. And when I say that, I should add that although Tom is crazy, Bob and I are actually somewhat conservative.

This is the top of the couloir. If you click on the picture, you'll get a bigger version that will allow you to see Tom. We all went pretty much straight up from there, but that is a more difficult (4th class) variation and not really the route.

From the top of the gully, you get a view of the summit across a yawning abyss. Again, click on the picture to see Tom traversing to the true summit.

If you get to the top of the gully and the knife-edge of the ridge you are on looks scary (big drop to the right, just in front of the camera here), you need to traverse around the ridge to climber's left, where it is a simple scramble.

Then it was time to head down. We knew we had a long way yet to travel.

That's the Sky Top glacier in the background. Bob is just ahead of me, and Tom is a ways down in front, about to exit the couloir.

Then it was time to go. On the way out, we followed a route not shown on our maps, but mentioned by Vince. So we descended the Sky Top drainage, shown on the right. This was way, way easier than rock-hopping around Aero Lake. We followed Sky Top Creek all the way to the Broadwater River where we climbed uphill/upstream for a short ways and then finally re-connected with our path from the previous day at about 6:00pm.

Our time out wasn't much different than our time in, but it was no where near as fatiguing. Just before we got back to the car, it started raining on us. Granite wasn't going to let us off that easily. But when we got to the car at 7:15, it stopped, allowing us to change out of our hiking gear with minimal fuss.

We went into Cooke City, filled up with $3.70/gallon gas, and had a quick dinner at the cafe. Then drove all night, with my birthday #52 somewhere around Idaho Falls (and I'm the youngest of this group). We got into Boise at 5am.