Backpacking and Peak Bagging with Josh in the Spanish Peaks Wilderness

Blaze Mountain and Spanish Peak

I have done at least a dozen backpacking and trail running trips into the Spanish Peaks over the years—not counting hikes to Lava Lake—but I have never made it all the way into Spanish Lakes.  I can count five times that I’ve been in the South Fork drainage of Spanish Creek, I even turned onto Spanish Lakes Trail in the summer of 1980, but I didn’t make it all the way to the lakes. The plan on that trip was for my buddy Huk and I to spend the first night of our Spanish Peaks traverse at Spanish Lakes. We were young and energetic and when we found ourselves standing in front of Blaze Mountain, our plans changed. We turned off the Spanish Lakes Trail and humped it into the woods. The forest opened as we approached the mountain and we searched for a flat spot to camp.  We found one right near the base of the blaze, got camp set up and started climbing. The blaze, the feature for which the mountain is named, is a long snowfield that fills an indent across the otherwise relatively smooth west face of the mountain. Back then the snowfield extended for at least 1200 vertical feet.  It has shrunk a bit in the intervening years, but tracks indicated that it is still large enough to induce skiers to carry their skis 7 miles into the wilderness and more than 4,200 feet up. 

Huk and I worked our way up to the peak salivating at the prospect of glissading the blaze. It didn’t disappoint. The snow was perfect; we glissaded in both downhill and telemark style. It was worth coming up short of Spanish Lakes to do, but I never thought it would take me 45 years to walk that final mile to the lakes.

The blaze: from the top of Spanish Peak and from below

I finally made it to Spanish Lakes with my nephew Josh on August 5^th, it was our second day of a three day trip. The lakes and the basin they sit in also did not disappoint.  We camped at 8,800 feet in the forest near the shore of a crystal-clear lake surrounded by sharp peaks. As with Huk so many years ago, Josh and my first order of business after setting up camp was to head out and bag a peak.  The goal this time was an unnamed peak I have been coveting for a very long time.  At 10,200 feet, it’s not a large peak—many highpoints in the Spanish Peaks Wilderness are higher—but it is a beautiful peak and one that I can see from near my house. It has captured my attention, and this was my chance. 

Josh on Spanish Peak, Spanish Lakes basin below

The first two miles of our route was on trail that took us up on a low shoulder of the peak at 9,400 feet. From there it was a mile long ridge hike with two steep climbs to gain the peak. Spanish Lakes Basin sat below us to the north, Big Sky and the Madison Range stretched out to the south.

Beneath our feet was something odd, something I’ve never seen on a mountain top before. Deer pellets. Thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of deer pellets. The peak was rounded, and a mix of rock and grass. Was there a salt lick up here, but if so, wouldn't there be sign of other animals? Did deer come up here to munch grass, for rituals, for deer orgies?  There was no water or shelter, the grass up top didn’t seem exceptional, but something drew them here. Maybe alien ungulates deposited them on top after interrogating them: “Who is your leader?”

Given the location of this peak above Spanish Lakes, I have dubbed it Spanish Peak. A more appropriate name might be Pellet Peak, but I don’t know if the pellets are a permanent feature that get replenished regularly, or if the aliens have moved onto other mountains or other worlds. 

We headed back down Spanish Lakes Trail early the next morning. I was eyeing the blaze as we went and when I noticed a climbers trail, we turned it into the woods following Huk and my path of oh so many years ago. We dropped our packs and started working our way up the rolling lower levels of Blaze Mountain. When we got up to the final face, I looked to my left and pointed out to Josh, “That’s where Huk and I likely camped.” It was a meadow and the only visible flat spot. We had carried a cantaloupe for lunch that day—we always carried a cantaloupe for our lunches. With a chunk of cantaloupe stuck on his knife and another in his mouth, Huk would pronounce that cantaloupe was the only food they hadn’t found anything wrong with. Whoever was on the trip would smile and nod in agreement while reaching for their next slice. It was just me that day, so we had our fill of cantaloupe.

After climbing Blaze, dinner was pork chops and potatoes. Huk carried a grill that hung off his pack. We built a fire, threw the potatoes in, and roasted the chops over the coals. Three chops each was our usual first night ration; we stuck them with a fork and ate them with our bare hands. Damn tasty. 

Josh is 19 and from Central New Jersey. He plays soccer and rides a skate board; not many mountains there to climb. He struggled up the final section of the climb. It was mostly meadow, likely 40-45 degrees steep. It was class 2 and 3. Not dangerous, just took some getting used to.  I kept him in view, but let him decide if and how fast to climb all on his own. As he tells it, he stopped at least 10 times, debated whether to continue, but did so each time. I waited for him near the top and he asked me “How are we going to get down?”

He made the ridge entirely on his own following a route of his choosing. He was taking his first steps toward gaining a vertical attitude. We followed the ridge line past not one, not two, but three false summits until we finally found the one that seemed to be maybe a foot higher than the others. He facetimed his best friend Victoria and showed her the view. I listened to excited screams.

Josh seemed to feel more in his element on the way down. We walked we talked, not once did he need to stop. We picked up our packs and started toward home.

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A side note: We camped next to a group of five young women at Spanish Lakes: four teenage girls (Becca, Charley, Sarah and Sydney) and their 24-year-old counselor, Laura. The girls were from southern Minnesota; Laura was from Ohio. They were 5 days into a 10-day trek. We had a few short conversations: Laura was a hard girl who spent lots of time in the wilderness taking out groups like this; two of the girls had never backpacked before, two had some experience. They were sweet, bright, and capable, but a few things about the trek they were doing caught my attention.

They were carrying way too much food, and therefore way too much weight. They weren’t doing a lot of miles each day, but carrying heavy packs even for 4-6 miles a day on steep mountain trails at altitude seemed like poor planning on the part of the organization that put this trip together. Laura said that she was carrying an 80-pound pack on her 115-pound frame. Even if that was an exaggeration, I’m sure that she was carrying way too much weight.

I’ve taken Josh out five times now in the past four years. We started off easy: overnights then multiday trips. On his first trip, at 16 years old, he carried 19 pounds. Now he starts off with around 25. He has developed a love of backpacking because I didn’t brutalize him by burying him under oppressive weight. I have trained him to be a very-light backpacker: ultralight plus a few creature comforts.

Laura’s instructions on for Day 6 were to take this little troop of hers bushwacking. She was thinking of climbing over a steep ridge above the Spanish Lakes to drop into Mirror Lake basin. I warned her against that as one of her charges could get injured or even killed on such an adventure. I suggested they come with us to Blaze Mountain, drop their packs and climb the peak unencumbered, then continue by trail to Mirror Lake. She was thoughtful, I think I convinced her not to try a Mirror Lake direct route, but I never saw any of them on Blaze.

My first four trips with Josh were entirely on trail.  This was the first time we did any off-trail mountain climbing. He was ready, even excited to do it: “Why would we sit at the lakes all day when we can be out bagging peaks.” But it took a few trips for this attitude to develop.

It was obvious that Sarah was out of her element in this wilderness. Southern Minnesota has no tall mountains and is at low elevation. Charley was more ready for an adventure, but she was experienced. It wasn’t clear to me how confident Becca and Sydney felt. On a trip like this group was pursuing, the goal has to be to build a lifelong love of wild places. In my mind, the organizers didn’t accomplish this goal. These girls should have been carrying light packs, 20-25 pounds, even if that meant that they had to be resupplied every three or four days, and Laura shouldn’t have been carrying anything like the oppressive weight she was carrying. Off-trail adventures should have been planned out with both the reality of how dangerous mountains like the Spanish Peaks can be, and with the capabilities of the least experienced members of the troop taken into account. It seemed to me as though the organizers hadn’t made the mental leap from southern Minnesota to southwestern Montana in planning this trip.

I saw the look on Sarah’s face in the few moments we chatted.  I don’t expect that she will ever be back.

Mirror Lake, 1st night's camp; Summit Lake, first post-backpacking day hike destination