There are three approaches to Granite Peak, none of them are short, none of them are easy. At 12,799 feet, Granite is Montana’s highest point. It is steep, it is stormy and it is well ensconced inside the 943,648-acre Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness.
I have made two attempts on Granite Peak, 40 years apart. For the first attempt, me and three other 20-something guys, Rune, Al and George, backpacked into Princess Lake. We did a reconnaissance trip to Avalanche Lake after setting up camp at Princess and were impressed by the difficulties that we would be facing in the morning. Still, we were young, confident in our abilities, and out as much to have fun, and to fish in the case of Al and George. An early start was called for the next morning; we rolled out of bed late and got going at 9. We hung out too long at Avalanche Lake while Al and George got their fill of fish—I jest, Al, especially, could never get his fill of fish—then Rune and I started off, George eventually pulled himself away from the fish, Al could not.
We made the peak in late afternoon as thunder boomed, got caught out after dark, and crawled through the boulder fields bounding the Snowball Lakes on a moonless night to get back to camp. Al carried a string of fish the whole way.
In the years since, I attributed our near disaster on Granite to youthful hubris. When Chris, my son-in-law, asked me if I wanted to attempt Granite again, this time as a day hike using the Froze-to-Death Plateau for our approach route, I jumped at the chance. We are both dedicated trail runners. We put in serious effort to stay in shape. We would go early, go light, go fast, make quick work of Granite and get out of there before the afternoon thunderheads bloomed.
Our efforts faced lung searing smoke early in the day as we climbed to the Froze-to-Death Plateau, then a long and difficult trek across boulder fields and alpine tundra. The descent from Froze-to-Death to the saddle between Granite Peak and Tempest Mountain cut an angle across the roughly 30-degree face of Tempest while dropping 620 feet. It was one long tilted boulder field. We made it to the saddle at 2 pm, only two hours earlier than Rune and I had made it 40 years before.
The climb from the saddle to the snow bridge is a challenging 800-foot ascent with lots of class 3 and some class 4 sections. The snow bridge is a crossing on a couloir that drops steeply down the south side of Granite that must be ‘bridged’ near its top at 12,250 feet. I was slower than Chris. He was about 20 minutes ahead of me when I crossed the snow bridge and reached the last, most dangerous part of the climb. I started up, remembering how exposed my younger self felt as I climbed. Rappelling slings on a tower I climbed past and one at the top of the chimney I was in did nothing to relieve my sense of exposure. Clouds were building, as was the sense that I may be too old for this, stopped me part way up this first chimney. 40 years earlier, a storm threatened me on the upper part of the peak. I got lucky then, the storm held off. I was slower now. Would I be as lucky this time? I chose to not find out.
The snow bridge; Chris on top of Granite Peak
I radioed Chris that I was turning back. He continued to the top then raced back down to try and stay ahead of the storm. It hit him as he reached the snow bridge; it hit me at the saddle. It was cold. I kept moving, expecting that it would be a short afternoon thunderstorm; we would reconvene at the edge of Froze-to-Death.
Tempest Mountain; the route across the face of Tempest
The storm produced hail, then wind driven wet snow. The crossing to Froze-to-Death was all the more treacherous. As if to emphasize this, a lightning bolt flashed right in front of me enveloping me in a deafening thunderclap. I completed the crossing and started shivering as soon as I stopped at the top to await Chris. We radioed; he was still descending to the saddle. I decided that I would climb 12,478-foot Tempest in the storm, it was an easy hike up. Better than trying to stand still and possibly freezing-to-death. Hmmm.
Tempest was fogged in when I reached the top. I got up and down before Chris reached the plateau. I started shivering as soon as I stopped; I still couldn’t just stand there. I radioed him. “Follow my footprints,” and I started off in search of cairns so we didn’t get lost in this vast unyielding hellscape. Chris appeared on the plateau about 5 minutes later. He caught up to me. He was out of water. He stopped at a creek to filter and refill; I started shivering again; I pushed on.
Fresh snow; fogged in on top of Tempest
The plateau angles downward. It is about 12,000 feet where we descended off its western edge, but only 10,140 where we gained it early that morning. The wind kept blowing, but the snow faded as we descended and temperatures inched up. The plateau seemed impossibly vast as we trekked across it. We were still moving well, but hours kept rolling by. It was about 8:45 when we were finally off the plateau and back on trail. With the forest providing protection from the wind, it got warmer, but now the race was on to beat darkness.
We ran down the 26 switchbacks to Mystic Lake making the lake as darkness got complete. 40 years earlier, when we got caught out in the dark on a moonless night, none of us had a flashlight: they were excess weight as they couldn’t be eaten, was our take back then. We were prepared this time, except that Chris’s headlamp had failed that morning so he left it behind. I had taken my headlamp out of my pack at the top of the switchbacks only to leave in on the ground as we hurried on our way. All we had for light was Chris’s iPhone flashlight. How long would it last?
We reached the car at 11:15 pm. It had been a 16-hour day. We traveled 27.3 miles and climbed 8,700 feet. Both of those stats were records for me—it was my first ultramarathon, albeit entirely unexpected. Chris, a veteran of endeavors of this magnitude, saw it as a “good training day” for the Rut Trifecta he is entered in in mid-September. Reports I had read estimated the Froze-to-Death approach at 13-17 miles round trip, AllTrails was closer at 22.6 miles. As Chris put it, “They sandbagged us.” We bagged 11,765 foot Froze-to-Death Mountain together early in the day, then he got Granite and I got Tempest, so it was double bags all around.
I see now that it wasn’t just youthful exuberance that got us caught out in the dark 40 years ago. That certainly contributed, but the approaches to Granite are long and difficult. Froze-to-Death was the longer approach, but starting from Princess Lake, I believe, one faces more relentless boulder fields in total. With 40 years between them, I can’t say which was more difficult, crossing Froze-to-Death and the face of Tempest or hopping across endless boulders around the Snowball and Avalanche Lakes.
There is one more approach to Granite—from Sky Top Lakes to the south. I believe that I spied the route that approach takes to the snow bridge—it stays on the rocks paralleling the snow bridge couloir. But one still has a long approach and has to face the same dangers above the snow bridge.
Would I reach the peak if I came back to Granite on a bluebird day? I do not know. I’d like to think I’d be carrying ropes, harnesses and rappelling gear if there is a next time, but no matter the approach, it is a long way to carry all that gear.
Oh, and Chris’s iPhone flashlight worked all the way back to the car.
The story about my first climb of Granite Peak can be found at:
The author atop Froze-to-Death Mountain
Gorgeous photos! Impossible terrain! How do you do it?
Janet
Nice pics. Story? Well ……