My next 10 Days

Moving from Yellowstone to Arizona in a hurry, but making sure I use my National Parks pass in the process. New student orientation starts August 9th.

Monitor Peak

Monitor Peak is in Montana, a few miles north of Gardiner. It's prominently visible from Mammoth but is less noticeable than it's taller neighbor to the southwest, Sheep Mountain. I saw Monitor Peak every day pretty much the last two summers, but never really was aware of it until I realized there was a trail going all the way around it. In an 18 mile day I could hike up the southwest valley, around the north side of the peak, then down the eastern valley. It would be a short off trail tundra walk to the summit from a saddle to get amazing 360 views of the Absaroka Mountains.

Or so I thought. This isn't a common hike at all, so there's very little information about the mountain. So boy was I surprised when I got up to the tundra and saw that the very top of the peak looked like this:



I've never been so close to the top of the mountain only to turn back. I investigated the base of the summit block and found a way to start up.

Then I saw this:

and my ascent was over. I could probably have climbed up that, but I didn't like my odds of getting down. Definitely class 4, maybe 5.0, and I don't do that solo when the consequence of a fall is 40 feet of air to jagged rocks on the side of a mountain 8 miles from the nearest trailhead. I could've thrown a rock onto the summit from where I turned back.

Still, if the summit had been more accessible and I had made it to the top, this hike would've been much less of an adventure. It's one thing to go hiking and find great views and solitude, it is another to push yourself to a point where you find your limit, and return safely knowing you made the right decision. I enjoy mountains that I can climb, I respect mountains that I can't.

Wildlife

So Yellowstone is known as THE place in the country to see wildlife in its natural habitat, and last year I thought I was pretty lucky in terms of seeing stuff. Multiple grizzlies, a wolf pack, moose, etc.

Aside from the wolves, this summer summer has completely eclipsed last summer in terms of animals. The bears are especially out in force this year. I've seen multiple bears all four weekends I've been in the park so far, though luckily I've been able to continue my streak of never having seen a bear while on foot. A coyote while biking to Lone Star Geyser last summer is the only predator I've seen outside of my car.

I saw 3 grizzlies in one afternoon without even trying. On the day I went skiing in the Beartooths (i.e. not trying to see wildlife, just driving across the park) I saw elk, bull elk, bison, bighorn sheep, coyote, pronghorn, deer, marmot, pika, moose, 3 different black bears, and a grizzly bear. I even saw the grizzly chase one of the black bears.

My parents managed to see multiple bears both days they were in the park last week, again without really trying to see wildlife. They were either just driving to Mammoth or driving to the trailheads for our hikes. I've been taking advantage of finally having a camera with a working zoom lens. It even takes HD video, a feature I will be showing off in future posts with a couple ski videos I made.

In other news my job here continues to go well, and I am finally going to get paid tomorrow. The delay is because it took forever for my background check to go through. Actually, I still doubt it has, I only got cleared because I cleared the FBI criminal record check. So if you still have a form from the government asking about me, please say nice things and return it promptly.

Also went on a hike to Pine Creek Lake near Livingston this past weekend. One of my top five glacial valleys ever. The other four would probably be Zermatt, Cascade Canyon/Solitude Lake in the Tetons, Grinnell Glacier in Glacier National Park, and Cascade Lake in the Indian Peaks Wilderness near Boulder, CO.

Speaking of Top 5's, Electric Peak two weekends ago is probably in my top 5 favorite mountain climbs ever. Other 4 would be Longs Peak, Crestone Needle, Schwarzhorn near Grindelwald, Switzerland, and der Shlern in the Italian Dolomites.

I Must Be Crazy

To avoid the 4th of July crowds this weekend in Yellowstone I'm going on a backpacking trip with some co-workers to climb Electric Peak.

That's not the crazy part.

The crazy part is that while looking at the peak a few days ago I saw a large snowfield on the north face near the summit. I'm going to bring my skis and try to ski that thing. Meaning I'm hauling my gear 10 miles and 4,000 vertical to get there. That's the crazy part. We'll see how it goes. Best case scenario I get 1,000 vert of skiing in on the 4th of July.