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| Page Type: Custom Object Location: Montana, United States, North America Lat/Lon: 32.84000°N / 113.91°W Object Type: Image Collection | Page By: thephotohiker, saintgrizzly Created/Edited: Aug 22, 2007 / Jul 4, 2009 Object ID: 327673 Hits: 1290 Loading... Page Score: 0% - 0 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
Pictures
 Ipasha Peak, Lithoid Cusp |
 Ipasha Peak, Mount Merritt |
Ipasha Peak, Mount Merritt |
TO BEGIN...CAREFULLY
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Image taken while standing in front of the Ptarmigan Tunnel, looking back along the access trail from Many Glacier's Swiftcurrent Campground. Relax, enjoy the view, but don't dawdle for long: awaiting is an unforgettable excursion through the definition of what a mountain paradise is all about...
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...to which entrance is accomplished easily enough;
you get there by going this way...
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Image taken while standing in front of the Ptarmigan Tunnel, looking back along the access trail—seen at lower right—from Many Glacier's Swiftcurrent Campground. Enjoy the view...relax...but don't dawdle for long: awaiting is an unforgettable excursion through the definition of what a mountain paradise is all about...
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Ward Mountain from the ridge to Camas Peak
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The standard East Face Route to the summit of Ward Mountain is a tough one, gaining almost 5,000’ in 6.2 miles. On hot sunny days the climb can be excruciating as the sun beats down unrelentingly on that southeast facing route.
Image taken while standing in front of the Ptarmigan Tunnel,
looking back along the access trail—seen at lower right—from Many Glacier's Swiftcurrent Campground. Relax, enjoy the view, but don't dawdle for long: awaiting is an unforgettable excursion through the definition of what a mountain paradise is all about...
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Ward's west ridge
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Side-by-Side
The Different Faces of Saint Mary Lake
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The Different Faces of Nature on Saint Mary Lake
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Stanton Mountain Pictures
Mount Vaught from the summit of Stanton Mountain
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Camas Ridge and Mount Vaught from the summit of Stanton Mountain
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Vernon Approaching the Summit
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Lake McDonald from the Stanton Mountain summit
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TEST
Meleah downclimbs the summit block
Trial & Error & Experimentation
Where to begin? How to begin? Good questions indeed, and since this page deals with an area, and a well-known area at that, described by no less a personage than the great naturalist and explorer John Muir as, "the best care-killing scenery on the continent," I think the answer is: begin carefully. And so it does. But also, and perhaps a bit surprisingly, this page begins with something not so well known, yet something getting-in-your-head memorable that won't for any reason leave (not that you want it to), and in this Glacier National Park of unforgettable peaks, it is not even a climb. Carefully begun, indeed! It is the Ptarmigan Tunnel to Ahern Pass Goat Trail, which J. Gordon Edwards, another individual knowing more than a little about mountainous terrain, called "The greatest twelve miles on the North American Continent." I don't know nearly as much as did Edwards, but even in these mountains about which I'm generally reduced to speaking of in nothing but superlatives, the Ptarmigan Tunnel to Ahern Pass Goat Trail is indeed quite special, and very much worth your attention. Therefore, after a relatively easy five mile jaunt (although the last 2.5 miles do climb quite steadily) from the Swiftcurrent Campground past the likes of Mount Gould, Mount Grinnell, Mount Wilbur, the Pinnacle Wall, the deceptively rounded west side of Crowfeet Mountain, with the sun just peeking over its rim....
That is what this page begins with.
There are a few things to remember, four of which come immediately, easily, to mind: Merritt. Ipasha. Natoas and Ahern, the bookends. Over and over they come at you, from that first unforgettable view when, by the simple act of walking around a cliff, with no warning you come face to face with thousands and thousands of vertical feet of glacially chisled rock looming impossibly big across the canyon, and no matter how many mountains you've already seen, it's special, and you know it's Merritt, with Old Sun Glacier drawing your eyes again and again to the summit, then sliding along the sharp-spired ridge to neighboring Ipasha—to a mountain as beautiful as its name. The glaciers had a field day here, munching and carving and ripping and making Paradise, and you do what everyone does: stop in your tracks and try fitting the vision in your head, until those behind let you know they'd like to see as well so would you please move on. Then, soon you hear the ones behind them, "hey, move along."
This goat trail has its dangers with exposure, and one soon learns to not walk and gape at the same time. The actual cliff part of this trek is about four miles long, and even though there is relief along the way, for maybe half that distance slipping on a pebble could prove...well, it's not something you want to do. You need to know how you react to exposure before these miles of greatness. In addition to the magnificent cliffs above and below this seemingly fragile marvel of goat engineering, across the way—always, The Four lying across the way!—is the Lithoid Cusp, the highest of a series of sharp, none-of-which-have-ever-been-climbed, spires forming the ridge between Merritt and Ipasha; and, at one point—not over there, but over here—the cliffs bend, wrap in a bit of a curve to reveal an unusual  Iceberg Peak, with Goat Trail on Pinnacle Wall
From Ahern Pass (and early in the summer you'll want both ice axe and crampons to ascend the snow field to the saddle—later in the summer you'll probably still want crampons; we did it late in July of a dry year, and were glad to have them) the ascent is 600' up to Iceberg Notch, which gives a rather precipituous view of the almost 1600' vertical climb down the other side to Iceberg Lake. I remember rather innocently asking, "where's the way down?" (I mean, for crying out loud, standing on the notch and peering down at the lake, you couldn't even see the way; it was too steep!) The answer, all the while gesturing down ("down" seems to be a key word here) to the lake, "that way." Very funny. But no ropes needed in good weather (actually, we didn't take ropes with us, because this entire outing is NOT something to do in inclement Ipasha Peak, Lithoid Cusp
 Longfellow Peak, as seen over Ahern Pass
Where to begin?
With something stunning, something getting-in-your-head memorable, that won't for any reason leave.
Not that you want it to....
Ipasha Peak, Lithoid Cusp, Mount Merritt |
Images
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