| Pollock and Piegan Trip Report |
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| Pollock and Piegan   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Montana, United States, North America Lat/Lon: 48.71630°N / 113.7029°W Date Climbed/Hiked: Jun 30, 2000 | Page By: mr kieran Created/Edited: Jan 28, 2004 / Object ID: 169244 Hits: 570 Loading... Page Score: 0% - 0 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
It makes only too much sense to climb Piegan and Pollock together: the two peaks sit hugging each other at the head of Lunch Creek and are climbed together with in fact a good deal less effort than climbing each seperately.
After ascending Mount Oberlin the evening before (easily reached from the Logan Pass visitor centre), my friend and I were in the mood to try something a bit more substantial, and the proximity of the Piegan-Pollock massif to the Going-to-the-Sun Road made these peaks obvious choices. Thusly, we left early in the morning from our campsite on Lake McDonald, headed over the pass, and parked at the turnout where Lunch Creek passes beneath the road. Heading off along the creek (still buried for the most part beneath snowdrifts) we encountered almost immediately the tracks of a grizzly bear also heading up the drainage. We had gone this far the night before and the tracks were not there, so my assumption was--and still is--that the animal had preceded us by a few hours. Consequently, we instigated brisk and meaingless conversation, at least until we were out of the dense islands of krummholz that fill the basin, so as not to surprise this or any other bear which may have been hanging around. Although grizzlies present no more of a danger than any other provoked wild animal (ground squirrels included--those bastards bite), the Lunch Creek basin, as I found out later from a Park Service bear-management employee, is a pretty notorious grizzly hang-out, so use caution in those subalpine fir thickets.
Above the thickets, we climbed a low spot in the cliff to the right of the big waterfall (especially magnificent in June) and came out into the wide basin below the face of Pollock Mountain. Slanting up toward the saddle between Pollock and Piegan is a snow couloir, not too steep, and for a time we ascended along it. However, about halfway up, I decided that time would be saved by scrambling directly toward the summit block of Pollock. This was a mistake. Although it looks easy, the face is just a big pile of loose slate and ball-bearing scree. The going is far more pleasant along the couloir.
The 'great cleft' was difficult to find, and we ended up wandering the base of the summit block for a good while before we found it, entirely on accident as it turned out. (Note: the cleft sits at more or less the right-hand corner of the summit block when it is viewed from Lunch Creek.) The rock in the cleft was covered with dripping water, and the cleft itself was jammed with ice, rendering its ascent far more difficult than it would have been later in the season. The wind was just shrieking across the summit, too. Small pebbles thrown straight up into the air would be torn off into oblivion.
After the strenuous and slightly hair-raising experience of inching down the ice-filled, water-slick cleft, the walk over to Piegan was a joyous stroll. On top of Piegan, the wind was even stronger, if anything. Facing the blast, I found I was able to lean into it at an angle with nothing but the force of the gale to keep me from falling on my face. The view from the top, however, was superb.
From the summit of Piegan, it is far easier to ascend the south slopes into Lunch Creek than to head back down the couloir. I would also recommend climbing the peaks in the order my friend and I did, Pollock first, in the interests of time and logic. For those wishing to get acquainted with the mountains of glacier park without too much effort, Piegan and Pollock are obvious choices and present spectacular views of the central portion of the park.
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