Glacier National Park

One day I was browsing in my local bookstore (all right, it was actually a Barnes & Noble), when I stumbled on an interesting book in the general travel section.  It was a natural history guide to Glacier National Park.  I had never really heard anything about Glacier, but I was taken with the book's cover photo.  It was a photograph of tree covered mountains surrounding a turquoise blue lake.  I had never seen anything like that photo, so I started browsing through the book.  I learned that Glacier, the country's third largest national park, is a million acres of glacially carved mountains and valleys teeming with wildlife.  Glacier sits on top of the Continental Divide in northern Montana and was once known as the "Crown of the Continent."  The book was not a travel guidebook, but I bought it out of curiosity.

I got bogged down reading the billion-year history of the rock formations of Glacier (those rocks seemed to be at the bottom of seabeds, then squeezed up and covered by glaciers more than once, and the history of rocks is a slow read), but loved the book's color photographs.  I was intrigued by the information I read about the park's wildlife.  According to the author, the park is home to grizzly bears, black and brown bears, mountain lions, packs of wolves, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, elk, eagles, and a lot more.  Even better, most of the park is a true wilderness.  Although many people visit the park each year, the overwhelming majority simply drive through the one road through the park (the "Going-to-the-Sun Road," a spectacular 50-mile drive trhough the park which crosses the Continental Divide at Logan Pass), stop at the visitor center, then leave.  The rest of the park is a rugged wilderness with 700 miles of hiking trails.

As usually happens with me, I started to become a little obsessive about going to Glacier.  It seemed like a crazy dream.  Where would I fly to?  How would I deal with all those wild animals?  I didn't have the answers, but eventually I realized that I couldn't go backpacking in Glacier alone.  All the written information I was able to obtain about the park cautioned visitors that they should never hike or camp alone in the park, due to the presence of the grizzlies, wolves, lions and other dangerous wildlife.  After a little research I discovered that there was one licensed outfitter that operated backpacking trips in the park:  Glacier Wilderness Guides.  I contacted them and things slowly took shape.

I am extremely reluctant to restrict my cherished travel freedom by joining a group.  I didn't even like the idea of joining a group of wilderness backpackers, but the people at Glacier Wilderness Guides were very persuasive, so I finally signed up for a 6 day trip with them.  Somehow, I even found a cheap flight to Kalispell, Montana:  a place I'd never even heard of before located near the western entrance of the park.  I had spent so much time deciding whether or not to go to Glacier, that all of Glacier Wilderness Guides' prime summer backpacking trips were already booked.  I was only able to book a trip that left September 14.  I was a little nervous about taking a trip so late in the season, but was determined to get to my new Shangri-la.

My first glimpse of the beauty of Glacier was a view that anyone who drives into the Western entrance of the park can enjoy.  After arriving in Kalispell and getting a ride to West Glacier,   I hiked into the park to Apgar, a collection of tourist shops and facilities at the western edge of ten-mile long Lake McDonald.  It was late in the day and late in the season, so everything was closed, but it was a beautiful afternoon.  Apgar has a small parking area in front of a rocky beach, where a small boat dock points straight across the long lake into a wall of snow capped peaks.  I was awed by the sight and comforted by the fact that one of the highest peaks across the lake is Mt. Cannon (8,952 feet).

The Adventure Begins . . .

The next morning I met my fellow backpackers and tour guides.  There were only 6 of us, plus our two guides, one of whom was a back-up guide and human packhorse.  Our guide Carolyn told us we would be hiking in the Two Medicine Lake area in the southeast sector of the park.  To start our trip, however, we would have to be driven in a van all the way around the southern edge of the park, then up to the park's eastern entrance.  The distances were much greater than I had anticipated.

I knew nothing about the area of the park we were driving to.  I was a little apprehensive at the start of the trip and mulled over all the variables involved: the potential for bad weather, the heaviness of my pack, my lack of familiarity with my fellow backpackers, the grizzly bears - everything seemed to be a possible trip spoiler.  Once we arrived at Two Medicine Lake, however, everything seemed much better, thanks to Mt. Sinopah.   There is a parking lot by the lake and 8,271 foot high Mt. Sinopah looms directly across the lake.  It rises high above the surrounding peaks and looks like a giant pyramid.  The morning we arrived there were pieces of clouds floating by Mt. Sinopah, well below the peak summit.  It was a beautiful sight and a nice introduction to the park.

We hoisted up our packs and set off toward Cobalt Lake via the South Shore Trail and Rockwell Falls.  Although I was surprised how easy the trail was, I was also surprised how heavy my pack seemed to grow with every step I took.  By the time we arrived at Rockwell Falls for a break, I was more than ready to take off my pack and sit down.  We had hiked through some beautiful woods alive with a variety of small plants, flowers and buzzing insects.  So far Glacier had lived up to its reputation as a lush environment.  Rockwell Falls was the kind of spot where I would have been happy to linger.  We didn't spend much time there, but I was thrilled with my first wildlife sighting.  While sitting on a rock by the falls, I noticed a small bird hopping around the rocks and diving into the water.  Finally I associated the bird with an amazing description I had read in my natural history guide to the park.  It was a dipper!  Dippers are mountain birds that live by icy rushing streams.  They dive into cold swift waters to forage for insects and bottom-dwelling aquatic creatures.  They have strong feet and can walk on the bottom of a rushing stream where a person would have a hard time standing up.  To navigate underwater, they actually fly, using their wings!  And they do this in the winter as well as in the summer, foraging in some streams under partially ice-covered surfaces.  The reason I was lucky enough to see one up close is because dippers love to build nests in the rocks behind waterfalls, and I had climbed up to a pool near the waterfall face.  To me the dipper was just as impressive a creature as some of the larger animals I would encounter on my trip.

Cobalt Lake is a beautiful glacial lake surrounded by a wall of mountains.  Its outlet is a stream which meanders down a hillside.  We hiked up to the lake parallel to the stream, climbing steadily as we went.  The lake actually nestles against the Continental Divide, which rises up in the form of Chief Lodgepole Peak (7,682 feet), right behind the lake.  Mount Rockwell (9,272 feet) lies just north of Chief Lodgepole and is connected to Mt. Sinopah by a continuous high ridge.  I found Cobalt Lake's beauty was enhanced by the golden late afternoon sunlight.  The day had been fairly cool, but we had plenty of time after setting up our campsites to enjoy the warm afternoon sunlight.  As this was a remote backcountry campsite, we were the only people there.  I spent a long time wandering around the perimeter of the lake.  Most of the lake shore is loose rock rising to rocky scree and climbing steeply up to the surrounding ridges.  As I sat on the lake shore I listened to the occasional piercing whistles of hoary marmots (an alpine version of a woodchuck that can weigh nearly 30 pounds), and watched small pikas scurrying around from rock to rock (something like an alpine rabbit that lives in colonies among rock and boulder fields).  The lake surface itself looked pretty dark and foreboding and there were patches of snow and ice on the far shore beneath the ridge.  I could imagine myself spending some time at Cobalt Lake, exploring the neighboring ridges and enjoying the pure alpine air.  It got pretty cold when the sun went down, but we had a nice camp dinner and went to bed early.  From then on, the trip went downhill . . .

Sometime during the night it started to pour.  Sleeping was pretty much impossible, what with all the thunder and lightning and the pounding of the rain on our tents' rainflaps.  To make matters worse, my tent was so poorly designed and it was raining so hard that the water basically poured into the side of the tent.  When I woke up my sleeping bag was nearly surrounded by a lake and everything that I had stored on the floor of the tent was sopping wet.  And it was cold!  We had a pretty glum breakfast since it continued to pour - a cold raw wind added to our misery.  We decided to hike on to our next destination, a place unfortunately called No Name Lake.  To get there we would have to hike back down by the stream we had climbed up and circumnavigate Mt. Sinopah, then climb up another steep ridge to the lake.  No Name Lake sits in a basin below Mt. Helen (8,538 feet) and within striking distance of Dawson Pass, our third day's objective.

We set out in full raingear.  Unfortunately, most of my clothing was already soaked due to my leaky tent.  It wasn't raining hard when we set out, and one of our group, Inge, forgot to put on her raingear.  A few hours into our hike, the rain storm worsened and the temperature dropped some more.  At some point Inge decided it was time to put on her raingear, but she was already wet and chilled.  We decided to hike to a small lean-to on the shore of Two Medicine Lake to see if we could dry off a little.  Unluckily for us, a cold wind blew in off the lake and only made everyone more miserable.  Inge looked like a hypothermia candidate - she was shivering uncontrollably, pale, and looked very unhappy.

The trail up to No Name Lake was a fairly long one and climbed pretty steeply.  I decided to rush along the trail, since there was not too much to see in the rain.  About the only pleasure in this hike was the fields of huckleberries and thimbleberries we hiked through.  I ate handfuls of huckleberries and didn't really mind the rain so much.  At some point, everyone else slowed down and I found myself munching my way through the huckleberries all alone.  Or was I?  That's when I remembered my natural history guide book's warning that grizzly bears often forage in huckleberry fields. In order not to surprise and thereby enrage an unsuspecting bear, I followed the guide book's advice and started whistling and making loud noises as I walked, feeling a little silly.  Later I found out that the No Name Lake area is frequented by grizzly bears and there had been many sightings during the time period we were in the area.

No Name Lake is beautiful - much larger and surrounded by more vegetation than Cobalt Lake.  We found the tent sites covered with a few inches of water and tried to sweep the water aside before pitching our tents.  My tent was still cold, wet and muddy from the previous night's fiasco.  Things didn't look good, and it kept getting colder.  We had a nice dinner that was pretty much ruined by everyone's concern over Inge.  She was shivering uncontrollably and her teeth were chattering.  She had no appetite and didn't cooperate with our attempts to convince her to eat and drink something hot.  It was such a miserable, cold wet night that we all went to bed early.

Overnight it snowed.  We woke up with ice and snow around our tents and campsite and everyone could see their breaths.  The surrounding peaks were completely white.  It was a cold, gray, windy day.  Inge and her husband announced at breakfast that they were cutting short the trip since Inge was miserable with the cold and wetness.  I was seriously considering joining them, as my clothing was still soaking wet and now much of it was stiff with ice crystals.  None of it seemed to supply any warmth.  Our problem was our proposed itinerary for the day:  climbing the Dawson Pass, which was surely snow and ice covered, and hiking along a high exposed ridge to Pitamakan Pass.  This would have been an extremely challenging hike in the best of weather.  We were more than a little daunted at the idea of undertaking this hike with cold wet clothes in the snow and ice.  Finally, it started to sleet and drizzle and our decision was made for us by the worsening weather.  We decided to hike back down to Two Medicine Lake.  There was a campground there and a ranger office where we might be able to dry out a little.

It was a beautiful hike back.  Mist and clouds swirled around all the neighboring peaks.  A few times the clouds broke and blue sky emerged, only to revert back to gray clouds and rain.  We had to hike the entire length of Two Medicine Lake, but enjoyed beautiful views of the lake along the way.  My wool socks were cold and wet and I actually couldn't feel my toes - they were numb from the cold.  I was looking forward to some warmth and dryness somewhere.  We managed to make it back to the parking lot and someone from Glacier Wilderness Guides came to pick us up to return to the western side of the park.  I gladly returned my wet muddy tent and backpack to the equipment room.  The trip seemed to be over.  I enjoyed the sensations of taking a hot shower and wearing dry clothes, but still wanted to go back and enjoy the park.  I felt a little cheated, and confused as to what to do next.

Waiting Out the Storm in Whitefish

Inge and her husband gave me a ride to Whitefish, Montana, a charming town north and west of Kalispell and the park's western entrance.  I planned to wait out the bad weather there and figure out my next course of action.  I stayed at the incredibly comfortable Good Medicine Lodge, which was definitely the best medicine for a snowed-out backpacking trip!  The Lodge is a quiet and cozy bed and breakfast across the river from town, which has plenty of charms for a rained-out backpacker.  The Whitefish Times Café is one of them.  The café is in a large house with a comfy porch and is a great place for casual food or just coffee and baked goods.  There are plenty of magazines and newspapers to browse through while drinking espresso on a rainy day.

The weather forecast called for the storm to blow over in another day, so I started to plan my return to the park.  There was one complication.  I wanted to rent a car and drive to the east side of the park, but the main road through the park was still closed due to snow and ice conditions!  I would have to drive around the southern rim of the park, which would add to the travel time.

While killing time in Whitefish I stumbled upon a book titled "A Climber's Guide to Glacier National Park" by J. Gordon Edwards.  The book is apparently a classic of climbing literature.  As I started reading this book I became more and more excited.  Many of these climbs are non-technical climbs and are described in fairly good detail.  They all sound thrilling.  I decided to do every single one, then realized I would never have the time - the number of peaks described would take a lifetime to climb.  Since I decided to use the Many Glacier area of the park as my hiking and climbing base, I tried to find a suitable peak in that area to climb.  After a while I kept coming back to the book's brief descriptions of Mt. Henkel.  At 8,770 feet, Mt. Henkel is easily accessible from the Swiftcurrent Lake campground and cabins.  I finally decided to spend one day hiking the famous Grinnell Glacier Trail, and another day climbing Mt. Henkel, all within an easy hike of Swiftcurrent.

The Grinnell Glacier Trail

The day I chose to hike the Grinnell Glacier Trail was bright and sunny.  I woke up early and left my cabin to stare at the sky.  It was a bright cobalt blue, while the rocks of Mt. Wilbur and Grinnell Point were bright orange in the sunrise.  The dusting of snow leftover from the previous days' storms only enhanced the mountains' beauty.  I stopped at the ranger station before hitting the trail.  A ranger advised me against hiking the Grinnell Glacier Trail because it had been "posted."  At Glacier trails are posted for bear sightings and it is unwise for a solo hiker to embark on such a trail.  Luckily, I had bought a small canister of pepper spray in Whitefish, which gave me a sense of confidence.  The beginning of the trail was stunningly beautiful.  It was a cool morning and there was mist burning off the quiet surface of Swiftcurrent Lake and Lake Josephine.  All the surrounding peaks were covered with white snow.  At the pond near Lake Josephine and Grinnell Point I stared at the peak in awe and remembered the Edwards book.  Grinnell Point would have been a great climb to attempt on such a beautiful day, but if I embarked on that climb I would never make it up to the glacier.  Besides I had left the book at the cabin and wasn't sure which route to take up the ridge.  Attempting it without the book would have been foolhardy.

The trail to the glacier was fairly easy, with gentle inclines and plenty of switchbacks.  The sun and warming temperatures melted the recent snowfall, causing streams to run off the hillsides and cross the trail.  The trail itself hugged the hillsides and provided gorgeous views of the lakes.  It threaded through pine groves, meadows, fields of huckleberries and flowers, past flowing streams and waterfalls.  It branched off to descend toward Grinnell Lake, and also climbed up toward the glacier.  Climbing up to the glacier I was mesmerized by the views down toward the lake.  The lake looked exactly like the picture on the cover of my natural history guide book!  The water is a phosphorescent bright blue, due to the reflection of light on the finely ground rock quartz flour which runs off from the glacier.  In the morning sun after a snowstorm, the color was even more beautiful, as the dark green pines surrounding the lake and the white snow-capped peaks above the lake added to the color contrasts.  The trail itself consisted of dark red rock, finely ground.  At some point I stopped staring at the lake and started getting the sensation that someone or something was watching me.  To my right, above the trail, I spotted four bighorn rams, watching me as they were grazing.  Below me there was a white mountain goat, also grazing.  I wondered what other forms of wildlife I had missed while staring at the scenery.  I have to admit that more than once I wondered where the bears were.

I couldn't wait to get to the glacier.  As I approached it, the temperature dropped and the wind seemed to pick up.  The final approach to the glacier is up a steep rocky treeless slope.  To the left of the trail a few hundred yards is the outlet stream for the glacial lake at the top.  Because of the heavy rains and snows, the stream was roaring and cascading down the mountainside toward Grinnell Lake.  I could easily see why this trail was one of the most famous in Glacier.  At the top of the trail by the glacier there is a spectacular view looking back down the valley toward Grinnell Lake, Lake Josephine and Swiftcurrent Lake.  From that height one has the impression of looking down on a chain of lakes fading far away into the distance, of being on top of the world.  Looking up beyond the glacier there is a sheer wall of rock:  the Continental Divide.  Here it is known as the "Garden Wall," a dramatic sheer wall of jagged mountains.

Even on a sunny day the glacier looks pretty forlorn.  It is a dirty grayish-white color, and chunks of it float in the dark waters of the lake below it.

I decided to ford the outlet stream and explore the area south of the glacier.  This was definitely off the beaten track and I hoped it would satisfy my desire to bushwhack into unknown territory a little.  As I climbed up the rocks south of the glacier I realized that I was leaving familiar rocky terrain behind and heading into nothing but snow and ice.  I took it slowly and kept climbing.  I was heading behind a peak called Angel Wing, on the shoulder between Angel Wing and Mt. Gould.  The more I climbed the more spectacular the views became.  I could no longer see down the valley I had climbed because Angel Wing blocked my view, but if I continued up the shoulder between the two peaks, I was convinced I could somehow descend back into the valley on the other side of the peaks.  This was pure fantasy on my part.  The contour lines on my hiking map showed sheer cliffs awaiting me on the other side, and I was now shin deep in snow and nowhere near the top.  I was intrigued by the animal tracks I saw in the snow. They seemed to go in every direction and I wondered what kind of animals lived at these elevations.  Mountain goats?  Somehow, I realized that I couldn't continue safely and reluctantly turned around.  I hated to leave the glacier basin but decided I had to go - after all, it was a six mile journey back to where I started.  Of course the outlet stream was now swollen from all the melting snow, so it took me a while to find a safe place to ford it.  I had to wander far away from any sort of trail and it took me a while to find the way back down.  Unfortunately, this involved scrambling up and down lots of rocky ravines.  I laughed when in the middle of some hand over hand climbing I accidentally put my hand down in a pile of animal scat.  Bear?  I wish I knew.

Finally I made it down below the glacier.  As it was already mid-afternoon, the sun was pretty strong and the temperature was much warmer.  I started to run into people coming up the trail as I was heading down.  I paused by a small waterfall cause by the snow run-off and chatted with a couple of hikers while nibbling on huckleberries.  I was in no hurry to leave so decided to take my time.  The view in front of me took in the whole panorama of the valley and I decided to savor every moment.

I ran into a couple of guys and a girl and started chatting.  Then I noticed one guy had an enormous hunting knife hanging from his belt.  I asked him why he carried it.  He told me he carried it for protection because he'd been attacked by a bear in his tent the night before!  He said he'd been in his tent when he'd heard some snuffling noises outside.  After a while the bear tore open the tent, and the guy shouted, scaring the bear off.  He showed me an ugly red gash on his shoulder and said his tent and sleeping bag had been "shredded."   He claimed the park service closed the campground (St. Mary's) and hired a Blackfoot Indian trapper to track down the bear.  I forgot to ask him if he'd had food in his tent, but as I was thinking about what he'd told me, I assumed he must have had something to attract the bear in the first place.  I told him I didn't think the knife was such a good form of protection (considering a bear's longer reach) but understood why he carried it.  I was glad I had my pepper spray.

I collected tons of huckleberries on my way down and walked very slowly in the sun.  At one point I was stopped dead in my tracks by a large elk grazing on some shrubs on each side of the trail.  Unfortunately, he was standing right in the middle of the trail and there was no way around him, either above or below the trail.  His antlers looked pretty intimidating, so I decided to wait him out.I waited and waited and waited.  Finally, he decided to move on.  When I reached Grinnell Point it was late, nearly 4:00 or 4:30 in the afternoon.  The peak looked just as inviting as it did in the morning, but after having hiked 13 or 14 miles I couldn't contemplate climbing it, so I headed back.  Lake Josephine glistened in the afternoon sunlight and I lingered on the boat dock at the end of the lake.  It was warm and sunny and lush down in the valley - the icy glacier and snowy peaks I had visited that morning seemed far away.

I didn't want the day to end, so I drove down to the St. Mary's area of the park and headed to the Park Café for a burger.  While there I talked to Matt and Tyana, who were working there for the summer and were very familiar with the Edwards book, "A Climber's Guide to Glacier National Park".  I was excited to connect with someone who knew the book and had done some of the climbs.  They rhapsodized about climbing peaks in Glacier and told me stories that kept me on the edge of my seat.  We talked for a long while and I decided to attempt the Mt. Henkel climb the next day. I had a brief fantasy of climbing Mt. Henkel, ridgewalking over to Crowfeet Mountain, and descending to Ptarmigan Lake.  Later I would learn that this was a superhuman fantasy and pretty much impossible to attempt in one day's time.  That night I was treated to a view of the entire Milky Way outside of my cabin.  I re-read the Edwards book on Mt. Henkel several times and prepared for my climb the next day.

Climbing Mt. Henkel

I woke to another perfect day in Glacier - cloudless and sunny.  The sight of Mt. Wilber in the sunrise was beginning to grow on me.  I stopped by the ranger station before my climb and chatted with a ranger about climbing Mt. Henkel.  We looked at a topographic model of the mountain and she advised me to climb up the east side of the scree basin at the top, recommending the view from there and telling me it was "just the same" as climbing the west side of the basin.  This advice turned out to be completely wrong and slowed me down considerably.

I packed way too much for my day hike.  I had my thermal underwear, rain gear, pocket knife, flashlight, lots of food, Edwards climbing book, long pants, etc., in short, way too much.  I started up the Ptarmigan/lceberg trail and soon left it to climb up the grassy slopes of Henkel.  The distances were deceptive.  The grassy slope at the base of the mountain didn't look very steep, yet I was huffing and puffing and climbing what I considered to be an incredibly steep incline.  My pack was so heavy I knew I'd made a big mistake, but I didn't want to hike back to unload things.  It was such a beautiful day I thought I'd just forge ahead.  The climb up the grassy slope seemed almost vertical.  After just a short while I had gained so much elevation that I had a great view of the Swiftcurrent valley below.

According to Gordon Edwards' book, the climb up Mt. Henkel involves a 4,000 foot elevation gain, and he categorizes it as a Class 2 and 3 climb.  Here is his explanation of Class 3:  "Small cliffs on the route may be difficult, and steep scree may require great exertion, but there is little danger of physical injury if reasonable caution is exercised."  This passage is a good example of Edwards' style.  His descriptions of climbs are sketchy, which is both good and bad.  I filled in the gaps with my imagination, foreseeing the climb as easier than described.  Sometimes the lack of detail can be maddening, however.  Edwards recommends following a stream bed up the mountain after the grassy slope turns into loose gray scree leading to "steep cliffs."  There are small cliffs leading up to the steep cliffs.  Edwards advises:  "scramble up the small cliffs and loose scree to the base of those cliffs, east of the steep stream gorge.  The route up through the cliffs is obvious and climber trails can be followed all the way to the top and into the great red basin above the cliffs."  I had my eyes on the stream bed and the gray cliffs above.  I probably should have angled to the right around the gray cliffs, but started to climb up through the stream bed (which was now a waterfall bed).  Although Edwards said the path through the cliffs would be "obvious" I never saw it and didn't have a clue where it would be.  Also, there were no climber trails, mountain goat trails, or trails of any kind.  After some hand over hand climbing I reached a vast red basin of scree which seemed to extend as far as the eye could see above me.  It was capped by steep red cliffs.  The more I climbed up the farther away the red cliffs seemed to get.  I couldn't even see the huge tan basin of scree above and behind it, or I would have become pretty discouraged.  Meanwhile, I was feeling the heat and getting pretty thirsty.

After a long climb, I noticed the red cliffs angled off toward the right where the ranger had said I could reach the top.  I spent a good 45 minutes climbing up that way and was rewarded with a tremendous view down into the lake (Natahki Lake?) below and down toward Mt. Altyn.  But I was very dismayed to see a huge cliff rising to my left, leading up toward some far away summit.  It was insurmountable.  Henkel was eluding me!  Clearly I was going to have to retrace my steps down toward the center of the red cliffs and find a more central route up.  I was hot and thirsty.  Getting back to the center of the red cliffs took quite some time.  It seemed that beyond them the summit should be a short distance away.  After I climbed up the red cliffs, however, I stood facing an enormous steep basin of tan scree.  Edwards' book recommends hiking west along the "strata" (I assume he meant the red cliffs) toward the ridge, and following the ridge up to the summit.  What seemed so easy in my imagination while reading the book in my cabin now bore no resemblance to reality.  That route looked next to impossible, so I just started climbing up the tan scree basin.  This was just short of a 90 degree angle and the more I plodded upward the more I appreciated the immensity of the whole thing. I kept running out of breath and had to stop, not understanding why the climb was so difficult.  Finally I realized that I must have passed 8,000 feet and was feeling the effects of the altitude.  That and the weight of my pack and the heat slowed me down considerably.  Also, hiking up the loose scree was a little like hiking in quicksand.  Each step up involved a sinking down into the gravel, and another effort pulling my foot out of the gravel.  I was slowly plodding upward and acutely aware of the time passing.  More than once, I wondered how I was going to get back down.  The many times I rested, I would face down the mountain, which felt like being perched on the side of a building.  I hadn't a clue how one should descend such a steep slope, so I kept thinking about the "easy descent" that Edwards mentioned, descending from Crowfeet Mountain toward Ptarmigan Lake.  The tan scree eventually turned into tan cliffs, which were much easier to climb, because my feet and ankles didn't sink down into them like the scree.  Once again I angled too far toward the right, so had to backtrack a little.  At a certain point I became very determined to get to the absolute summit, and I did.  What a reward that was!

The cairn at the top of Mt. Henkel is on a small level space with a 360 degree view that is breathtaking.  I could see all of the Lake Josephine valley, the Swiftcurrent valley, Iceberg Lake, Mt. Wilbur, the Ptarmigan Wall, Crowfeet Mountain (which was huge), Apikuni Mt., Mt. Altyn, and more!  Everything glistened with a dusting of snow underneath crystal clear blue skies.  I find such moments hard to capture with words.  Being on top of Mt. Henkel was like no other experience I'd ever had.  The silence was overwhelming and the vastness of everything around me was awesome.  The sun was incredibly bright and yet a cool breeze blew at the summit.  I took some photographs, wondering if they would ever do the experience justice.

Then, where to go next?  I had learned a valuable lesson about my perception of the vastness of the things I was seeing and climbing.  I realized that the ridge to Crowfeet Mountain was very long and involved climbing a long way down and back up, leaving me, assuming I made it, with a long hike back on the Ptarmigan trail.  (Perhaps a midnight hike, assuming my legs could still function!)  Apekuni Mountain beckoned, but I couldn't understand Edwards' directions to get there from Henkel.   It sounded like I had to go back down to the red cliffs and east to where I had initially climbed, then angle down around some Class 4 cliffs to get to the ridge, which looked immense from the top of Henkel.  According to Edwards, Class 4 meant "the potential hazard is great" and there seemed to be a great big gap between the cliffs of Mt. Henkel and Apekuni that would require wings to traverse.

Given the choices, I re-read the Edwards passage about climbing down Henkel, which sounded like the best and easiest alternative.  He said the descent would take 2 hours, half the time required for the ascent.  Since I was already pushing myself to my physical limits, nearly out of water, and lugging a heavy pack around, I decided my only choice was to go back down Henkel.  I stayed at the summit for a while longer, then climbed down the cliffs toward the east of the summit and eventually started down the scree basin.  That was A lot easier than I thought it would be, and basically involved a kind of sliding/skiing motion down and through the scree.  Edwards was right when he said the descent was a lot faster than the climb.  In an hour I had cleared the tan basin and was actually kind of sad that it was behind me, but was amazed at how huge the red basin looked from where I was.  It was like standing on top of an enormous red gravel mountain.  I could just barely see to the edge of the gray cliffs leading to the grassy slope.

Now I was actually in a hurry to get down, so I slid and jumped down the scree pretty quickly.  It created a lot less strain on my knees than did the steeper part further down.   I saw some bighorns on the way down, as well as a few mountain goats.  When I got to the gray cliffs, once again I angled down toward the waterfall stream bed, which turned out to be a mistake.  At one point, I was facing forward, which was foolish, and climbing down the cliff when my backpack got stuck on a rock and caused me to pitch forward.  I miscalculated how far my backpack protruded from my back and should have faced the rock for the descent.  Another lesson learned the hard way!  Once past the gray cliffs I realized I probably should have climbed up to the right of them, and descended via the same route.  The final part of the descent really bothered me because it was so steep and because it placed such a strain on my knees.  I guess by that point my body was just plain exhausted.  It seemed to take forever.  When I finally reached the Ptarmigan/lceberg trail I was very relieved: also sweaty, dirty, dying of thirst and tired.

When I got to the parking lot in front of the Swiftcurrent lodge I noticed some people with binoculars looking at the hillside to the south of Mt. Henkel.  They said they were looking at a bear and for the longest time I tried but couldn't see it.  Finally I did.  We also saw a small herd of elk or bighorns higher up.  The bear was really not that far from where I had come down Mt. Henkel.  The gift shop manager came out with a telescope which allowed us to see the bear really well.  It was clearly a grizzly, foraging in a field above the tree line.  Lots of people stopped to watch him.  I was thrilled to be able to observe the grizzly from afar, instead of running into it face to face on the way back from a hike!  What a day!  My knees felt twice their usual size, my calves felt huge and everything kind of throbbed and was sore, especially when I sat or squatted or bent down.

I heard the forecast for the next 5 days - sunshine and temperatures in the 70's, and immediately regretted leaving Glacier.  My only consolation in leaving was that I knew I was going to be too sore to do much more hiking, at least for the next day (but the Ptarmigan/lceberg trail beckoned).  I realized that everything had worked out for the best, despite the backpacking trip being cut short by bad weather.  If not for the trip being cut short, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to hike up to Grinnell Glacier, and I never would have hiked Mt. Henkel!  The last was such an accomplishment that I wouldn't have traded it or sacrificed it for much of anything.  I was still pretty amazed at the physical demands of the whole experience, and will never forget how I felt when I was standing at the juncture of the Ptarmigan/lceberg Trail with my descent behind me, looking back up toward Henkel.  I couldn't believe what I'd just done.  Also, having done it alone, without the benefit of a trail to follow, and not encountering anything but wildlife along the way gave the experience more depth and meaning for me.  Needless to say, leaving the next day was one of the hardest things I've ever done, probably harder than the Henkel climb itself!

        © 2000 by Robert Cannon