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Monday, September 6

I love Glacier National Park. It is hard to describe what makes it so unique. It is a Rocky Mountain Park, like many others - but still, there is something about its particular geology, its setting perhaps, its climate, that makes it unique. It is a wonderful hiking and scrambling park, with huge expanses of alpine terrain and many mountains that are well-suited to off-trail climbing (despite large amounts of loose-ish rock, I might add). Several large distinctive units of rock in the park are brightly and weirdly colored, and contain many fossilized features (ripple marks, dessication cracks, fossils, etc). Below are several pictures showing the beautiful landscape at Glacier.
Rising sun Campground
Specatular Jackson Glacier
Mount Jackson
Luke and Sophie wanted to do some climbing here at Glacier. I figured the best thing to do was to try an easy scramble and see how they liked that. It is important to establish a frame of reference between everyone in one's hiking group before planning more adventurous outings.

I selected a relatively easy scramble that I'd done before: the Piegan / Pollock scramble from via Lunch creek on the going-to-the-sun-road. We would go up as far as we could and then return back down the way we'd come.

We made it up as far as the first real scramble, which was a relatively narrow class-3 chute with some loose rock. Luke and Sophie didn't like the look of it, so we turned around at that point. It was a good exercise, all in all. It gave me a sense of what they were comfortable and not comfortable with. And, the scenery was grand, as usual!
courtesy Luke
Luke prepares for his first climb
Lunch Creek
Luke and Sophie amidst Glacier grandeur
courtesy Luke
Rock Talk
Mount Clements
The next day dawned with iffy weather. I had planned to try a peak in the Many Glacier area called Mount Henckel. It looked like a good combination of short, not too difficult technically, and great scenery. Even though the weather looked crappy, we decided to head over to the Many Glacier area anyway, just in case. After all, we had nothing better to do!

Well, the weather turned worse and it started raining, so no climbing today. Instead, we explored the historic Many Glacier hotel and had a bite of continental breakfast. The hotel is one of these turn-of-the-century grand places, and the place has been well-preserved over the years by the park.
Gray day at Glacier
The Many Glacier Hotel
Germanesque, almost
Main hall of the Many Glacier inn
Glacier's Red Jammer Buses
We returned back to our camp to relax and wait for the weather to change. We all did a bit of reading for the rest of the morning and early afternoon.

The weather changed for the better by late afternoon, and we were all up for an outing. I suggested a longer trail hike, since the high country was probaby still unsettled. We drove a little ways up the park road and took a main trail up towrads Gunsight pass. If our pace was good, we'd get to see the spectacular surroundings of the Gunsight lake / pass / Jackson glacier region.
Starting another day hike
Trail along St. Mary's lake
Gunsight Pass trail
We made excellent time (although the recent rains had soaked the surrounding vegetation, making our pants quite wet). We did not quite make it to Gunsight Lake, opting to turn around a few kilometres before we reached it. All in all, it was a good solid 20km of hiking, all completed in just 4 to 5 hours.
Hiking towards Gunsight Lake
Stopping for a break
Reynolds Creek
The next day dawned bright and clear, so our climb of Mount Henckel was on. We drove back over to the Many Glacier area, noticing how much more beautiful everything was on a clear day, and parked in the main parking area at Many Glacier. From the parking lot we could see the summit of Henckel far above us. This was a short but steep outing : less than 2.5 miles from trailhead to top, but also over 4000 feet of elevation gain.

Henckel is a fairly straightforward climb, with 3 class-3 cliff bands to negotiate. None of them are particularly hard, although in spots there is a bit of exposure.
Lake Sherburne
Starting off for Mount Henckel
Mount Wilbur
The hike started steep and stayed steep. Our progress was slow; Luke's ankles and knee were giving him a bit of a problem from yesterday's long hike, but the distances involved on this climb are short and it did not take us long to climb up the beautiful bit of open meadow to the base of the first cliffs.
Luke and Sophie ascend meadow
Many Glacier area
Henckel's first cliff band
courtesy Luke
courtesy Luke
Just before ascending first cliff band
Luke and Mount Wilbur
We helmeted up at the first cliffs (Glacier's loose rock means that helmets are a good idea when scrambling on the steeper terrain). Sophie was a bit nervous about this first bit of more exposed climbing, but with a bit of coaching from Luke and myself, she was as good as gold.

The scramble was fun, enjoyable and quick, winding back and forth over tilted strata, and soon were at the top of it and into a wide basin of colorful purple scree, with the upper part of Henckel above us. The day was glorious and clear, and only a slight breeze was blowing.

One of the zippers on Sophie's convertible hiking pants had failed. Luke fixed that up with some skillful duct taping. High in the basin we saw several bighorn sheep sunning themselves.
Partway up first cliff
Sophie atop first cliff band
Mending a leg
The second cliff band was an awesome band of purple-colored argillite. We wound back and forth through the colorful formations. The climbing was easy - I would hesitate to even call it class 3.
Colorful second cliff band
Luke ascending second cliff band
At the top of this cliff band was the final stretch to the summit - a crumbly yellow-y slope that was mostly loose scree down below, and slightly ledgy and cliffy above. We were 300 vertical feet from the summit when Luke became increasingly uncomfortable with our surroundings - his leg was bothering him, and, in combination with the fact that we were up in a somewhat airy spot, he began to feel uneasy. We rested for a bit, hoping that this would pass, but it became apparent that perhaps the prudent thing to do was to head down, and so, down we went. We lost altitude very easily and rapidly, and Luke was feeling much better even 15 minutes after our turnaround time.
Upper scree slope
the view from the middle basin
Bighorn sheep on descent
I took lots of good photos of the bighorn sheep on the descent, as well as just generally soaking in the ambiance of the park. I'll definitely have to come back and hike this peak sometime!
Bighorn sheep cloesup
Mount Wilber and lower mt Henckel
Luke and Sophie back at the bottom
Back at our campground (Wednesday afternoon), we reviewed our 'budget' of days, trying to ensure that would have enough time to hit all of the major points of attraction we were interested in. I had to pick up Jennifer on Friday (the 10th), so that was a date fixed in stone. We agreed on a plan to split up the next day (Thursday, Sep 9). I would head north into BC to Vancouver and visit with my friend Kennedy, while Luke and Sophie would head straight west into Washington state and see some sights there. After picking up Jennifer, we would play telephone tag and pick a spot to rejoin on the 11th.
Wild goose island on a moody dawn.
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