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| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Montana, United States, North America Lat/Lon: 45.27600°N / 109.8151°W Date Climbed/Hiked: Jul 15, 2000 | Page By: mr kieran Created/Edited: Jan 20, 2004 / Object ID: 169236 Hits: 692 Loading... Page Score: 67.74% - 1 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
The north face of Mount Wood is one of the most spectacular alpine faces in the state of Montana, hung by glaciers and snowfields. These snowfields drop off into West Fishtail Creek, the head of which sits directly under that impressive north face. Put simply, it is a basin of exquisite beauty.
Getting there is hellish.
There are no trails, no flat ground. From the end of an old mining road near Chrome Lake, it is simply one continuous push through subalpine fir thickets. What I was anticipating was a little strenuous walk in the woods. What I got was a nightmare.
The first time my companion and I attempted this route, we got all the way to the basin (I'm still not sure how), camped at the largest of the West Fishtail Lakes, and for the next three days it rained and rained and rained. Between squalls (it just came down in sheets) we were able to grind on up to within two hundred vertical feet of Mount Wood's eastern summit (the highest of the two, so I am told) before the weather set in.
The next year, we only got three miles up the canyon. Trying to avoid the jungle next to the creek which had slowed us up the year before, we attempted to boulder-hop (with packs--oh joy) the whole way, along the western edge of the valley, but the rain caught us on the rocks, slowing our progress to a halt. We spent the night in a dripping grove of spruce, everything soaking wet, our skin scratched over with cuts and fir needles stuck to our backs. The next day, with no relief from the dampness in sight, we left. Once back in the vehicle and on our way down, I stopped to take a picture of the north face of Wood, screened behind a shifting curtain of sleet.
The moral of the story is: if'n you try it from the north, take the Stillwater Plateau. West Fishtail Creek Canyon has its rewards (I cannot impress upon you in this format how truly beautiful that valley is) but just getting up it is far more of a trial than the mountain itself presents. The basin may perhaps be more easily accessed by travelling up the plateau nearly to its highest point then descending steep talus, but if rotten weather hits, you're almost certainly better off in the West Fishtail Creek Jungle than exposed on the Stillwater Plateau.
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