Vignettes from Montana Climbing

    After spending the month of May in Yosemite with the Bozeman Toprope Association (BTA), I spent the rest of the summer mostly back in Bozeman working and recharging. I feel like that particular Yosemite trip did a great job of highlighting all of my weaknesses, so instead of writing a post about that trip I decided to sit on it for a while and focus on the local community, areas immediately surrounding Bozeman and also on trying to get stronger. Suffice it to say there were a lot of great days on rock with the homies and I feel like I really got to explore Montana climbing and embrace what is it all about which is the motivation for this post. Below are a sampling of photos from a variety of Montana (?) crags as well as a few excerpts from a couple of profound and fruitful trips!      

Aki or Jonah photo of Owen on The Fugitive, .12b Gallatin Canyon.  

Owen on the gaston crux. Apparently there used to be a crimp at this crux that Timmy Cheesesteak broke off... so now it is probably a little harder :-) 

Jonah building his nest before launching off into a spicy 5.11 down climb which is immediately followed by a pumpy corner (circa pre-bolt). 
 

Neil doing Neil shit while exploring Natty Bridge.

Maddy heel hooking for glory on Run to the Hills, .12 boys.

Lauren stoked while sending the second "Red Arch Pitch", .11+.

The boys enjoying a lovely afternoon on the roof.

Blodgett Canyon

    This past June, I spent a couple of days climbing in Blodgett with my friend Eric. We ended up having a great time and also got to spend two nights with Eric's friends Josie and James in Missoula which was super nice. We played croquet, ate really good but really spicy food, and played Catan. Thank you for the hospitality Josie! It also allowed us the opportunity to shower each night after climbing since over the course of the first day Eric and I removed a total of 20 ticks off of each other... it was disgusting. 

Eric following the crux and final pitch of Timbebinder, 5.11 (bit of a sandbag tho IMO).

Eric on the approach towards Flathead Buttress (circa tick season).

   The next day, we ultimately ended up rapping from the top of pitch three on My Mom's Muscle Shirt since that is the last place with fixed anchors and I was pretty tired from leading all of Timebinder the day before. Already super impressed by the initial 2 pitches which climbed mostly splitters, I was psyched to come back at some later date (hopefully when the ticks situation was more manageable) and finish the route to the top. 

    That opportunity finally presented itself the other weekend when I was visiting my friend Jonah for his 30th birthday party in Polson, MT (an hour and a half north of Blodgett, right in the heart of the Flathead Valley). That Saturday we pressed cider, bbq-ed a pig, drank beverages, sat in the sunshine, and celebrated the start of a new decade with some wonderful people... all culminating in an epic glow in the dark Bocci game and a bonfire to boot! 

    The following morning, my friend Rob and I woke up in the grass of Jonah's front lawn and immediately started the drive towards Hamilton, MT, taking a quick pit stop at Starbucks in Missoula along the way. We got to the parking lot at around 7:30 A.M., and started hiking in a bit after first light which was perfect because there was still a slight nip in the air and I like hiking in the cold...          

Sunlight hitting the south faces of (from left to right) Flathead Buttress, Shoshone Spire, and Nez Perce Buttress.

Beautiful fall day in the Bitterroot!

    Even though I had already done the approach before, we managed to screw things up and ended up on one ramp system too high from where we wanted to be to get over to the base of the south face. After two rappels off of trees (one 30 meter and one 60 meter) we were at the base of the route and amping to start climbing! The conditions were perfect, a dusting of snow in the higher mountains but bone dry rock and tee-shirt climbing temperatures. Rob lead the first, third, fifth, and eighth pitches and I lead pitches two, four, six, and seven. We probably started climbing around 9:45/10 and topped out the formation at a 4:00 which made for a comfortable day start to finish. Furthermore, I was able to send every pitch which I was pretty stoked on (the crux was power-liebacking reminiscent of pitch 4 of Velvet Hammer). Rob sent every pitch he lead which included a wide 5.9 OW which was badass, especially considering he has never climbed a wide crack before!    

Owen in the awkward, left-slanting crack on pitch 7

  

Vibing and recharging after getting the speaker connected and bumping Beyond by Daft Punk.

Rob choosing his own adventure on pitch 8

    The only thing to note beta wise is that we found a pretty major discrepancy between Steph Abegg's descent and ours. It's kind of a running joke in my friend group that if there is a Steph Abegg topo then the route will go seamlessly. While this indeed was the case for the ascent, where Steph notes 3 double rope raps to get down, we ended up doing 6 including redoing the same two raps that we did in the morning before starting the route. I think there probably is a way to get down further skiers left and hike back to the trail which is maybe what the SA beta is referring to but just wanted to give folks a heads up.  

    Additionally, with regards to something that I am coining (for lack of a better word) the "retro-onsight" I am curious to survey public opinion on whether this distinction is important or not.... I've had a similar situation happen once before on Positive Vibrations at the Incredible Hulk this past summer climbing with Fiona. We made it up the first six pitches but bailed at the base of the crux pitch due to lightning and a snow/rainstorm. We waited out the storm under a shitty bivy cave which we dug out under a boulder since we cleverly decided not to bring the rainfly for the tent, and climbed the whole route to the top clean the next day. Technically speaking, either scenarios require onsighting and then once again redpointing every pitch at some point or another without falling, but I get the argument that a true onsight is harder because with a retro-onsight you are more familiar with the climb. Either way I guess it is a flash right?

While this debate is pretty small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, I do think at the end of the day climbing is a sport of semantics so as long as you're honest with what you did I think that's all that matters. Either way, My Mom's Muscle Shirt is a quality line and it is pretty wild that we have something like it in Montana. I would even say a must do if you climb the grade... way more classic pitches than Tower of Innocence in the Beartooths.    

Beartooths

    This fall, the stars randomly aligned last minute for my father to come out to Bozeman for a few days on his way back from visiting our cousin Nate during his NHL rookie playoff game in Scottsdale, Arizona. It was really great to show my pops around Bozeman, introduce him to the BTA crew, and have dinner at Blackbird so he could meet the work fam. Over the weekend that he was in town for, I though it would be fun to do a big hike somewhere and the beaten path quickly came to mind. Seeing as we weren't able to find another group to key swap with and that my dad was coming from sea level and is turning 60 this November, we decided to just hike up as far as we felt one way and then turn around which ended up being perfect!

Owen and Nick posing for a quick photo at Elk Lake. 

     The whole morning consisted of hiking past beautiful alpine lakes, with towering walls seemingly as far as the eye could see! Before this trip, I had done some climbing in the east rosebud area and some skiing leaving from the Cooke City area, but really hadn't ever ventured into the heart of the Beartooths before. It was special to see a glimpse of some new, beautiful wilderness areas and share that moment with someone who I love dearly.

Took a quick dunk in Rainbow Lake and then turned around for a burger and a beer at the Grizzly Lodge.  

Walls, so many Walls! As some one who grew up predominantly rock climbing in the north east, this reminded me a lot of Cannon in NH for some reason and is about the same height too...  

One of countless gullies encountered throughout the hike, all of which look to contain good rock and natural crack features. 

The iconic Bears Face with the still unclimbed Giants Foot to the left above it.

The mighty Lower and Upper Doublets (For scale: the Lower Doublet's face in the photo is ~1,800 feet).

    Seeing the walls in the flesh after hearing all of the lore surrounding the climbing in the area definitely triggered something in me because the next weekend I had plans to meet up with Nathaniel who had just moved back up to Bozeman from Durango for the fall. We had a couple of ideas about where we might wanna climb but after doing some of the beaten path with my dad, all I could think about was the Abbey-Shock route on the Upper Doublet (queue "The REM Cycle"). 

    After feeling satisfied hiking up to what I believe is Rainbow Lake, we decided that we wanted to go see the town of Red Lodge and also dine at the Grizzly Bar in Roscoe MT; two things which I had not done yet since moving to Montana in 2019. After fueling up at the Grizz, we quickly drove through Red Lodge and onwards over the Beartooth Pass. Oncoming traffic, roads with zero shoulder, hairpin switchbacks, and moments of pure blindness due to the setting sun certainly made things tenser than they needed to be on the drive to Cooke City... but we were able to stop at the top of the pass and look over at the ski tow lift and the Bears Tooth tower. Such a trippy landscape being high up on the plateau, certainly one of the more special areas in this world. Glad I got to share it with my dad... 

Pops with his cup of tea and faded pink shorts, somewhere close to the top of the Pass.

The REM Cycle, w/ Nathaniel 

     As alluded to earlier, the following weekend Nate and I end up leaving Bozeman Friday afternoon with the goal of climbing the Abbey-Shock route on the Upper Doublet. By the time we got to the trailhead, it was already zero dark thirty and the original plan of making it to the mushroom boulder near the base of the route seemed unrealistic. After hiking the first couple of miles on the Beaten Path we peeled off in an attempt to find the climbers trail, but in the dark, success escaped us and we ultimately decided to just bushwhack uphill for another hour and find a place to bivy. 

Missed this dude! Nate and I at Treeline, in our element, doing our thing, vibing.

    After a solid uphill push, we realized we inadvertently cliffed ourselves out and elected to spend the night there with a 4:20 A.M. alarm set for the next morning. Longish story short, we both slept through our alarms the following morning and didn't rise until 8:30 A.M. (Whoops).    

Our bivy spot, which ended up being pretty exposed slabs in the daylight with a waterfall coming down it.

Still deciding what to do... dreams of climbing the Abbey-Shock all but distant memories after realizing we had overslept our alarm by ~ 4 hours. 

First light hitting the walls of the East Rosebud. 

    Despite the brevity of plan A, that morning I think we were both genuinely content to just be there in that moment spending time with each other in an incredible place... By the time we ultimately rallied out of bed, our tentative plan was to just get up to the base of the doublets to check out the approach for a future mission. As we were simul climbing kinda legit slab pitches getting out of the drainage which we spent the night in, our eyes were drawn to two features which looked appealing from a distance and our plans quickly evolved into a desire for adventure. The first feature was a phallic looking tower which was enticing, while the other was a ~ 500 foot rock outcrop with nice looking rock and a prominent dihedral system up the middle of it.    

The Upper Doublet (center) with "the Throne" to the right.

    Ultimately we decided on the latter feature, and after leaving all of the bivy kit in the packs, marched off with a few snacks, water, rack, rope, tagline, and a renewed enthusiasm for the day. Our mantra from the get go was simply keep going until we aren't having fun anymore (but with Nathaniel that very rarely happens :). We also had a full rack of bootied stoppers and webbing and the fact is, the throne is not that tall so we were confident we could bail at any point with 3 raps max to the ground which kept the mood light, at least for me...   

Death gulley between the two doublets. 

Hail to The Throne!

    Reaching the base of the formation was simple enough, with the only real technical bit being transitioning from the death gulley to the slabs beneath the UD. We quickly deduced that the gulley between the throne and the UD was a viable descent option (if we were to make it all the way to the top) and thus set our minds to carving a path up the virgin terrain.

Nate styling pitch one with the the UD looming above.

    As we got closer however, we could see that the left facing corner we first identified was guarded for 50 feet at its base by a band of less than desirable looking rock. Rather than faff around trying to get to the good rock in the corner above we decided we would climb the slabs on the left and traverse into the face higher up. I think we roshambo-ed for the first lead, but either way Nate took us up a full 50 meters to a small semi-hanging stance at the base of an arête. A fun, somewhat balancey 5.8+ pitch on decent rock; while following this pitch I happened to hear several large rocks ricochet down our descent gulley but was able to compartmentalize that information for when it might be useful later.         

Nate following pitch two with East Rosebud Lake in the background.

    I take the lead and traverse right past a super clean but super steep open book style corner which looked 5.12 from the base. I didn't really even entertain the idea of going up the corner so I traversed onto the face proper and ended up doing some fun 5.10 moves to establish myself on a sloping ledge below a confluence of overhanging finger cracks. When Nate got to the belay, he was rightly a little bitter that I lead such a short pitch so I agreed to take the next lead as well. 

Unfortunately the only photos I have of the 3rd pitch are screenshots from videos.

Another still from a video. You can see the intersecting finger cracks pretty well in this.  

    The third pitch began by pulling the overlap right above the belay. From here I actually traversed further out right on knobby face holds with a descent red C3 and a marginal brassie to another stance where I fiddled in a .2 X4 in a solid but flaring crack. I then proceeded to attempt boulder problem-esq moves to pull the small bulge. After several iterations going up a little, going back down to the stance, going up a little etc. I finally commit to the moves and end up taking a 20 footer onto the .2 which thankfully held, allowing me to remain super gripped but unscathed. 

    It takes me two more tries and two more falls but I finally refine the beta and calm my nerves enough to execute the sequence which puts me roughly right above the pitch 2 belay and clocked in at around .10+. Above me lied a finger crack feature which was split in two via a large, questionably attached flake. Feeling emotionally spent from the previous whippers, I resort to delicately C1-ing through this section pulling on a green and purple C3 respectively and build a belay in a corner. We end up hauling the pack for pitch 3 allowing Nate to try hard for the send which he executed beautifully... Nate called it 5.11 a/b which seems about right. Psyche was high!

Nate hanging out after snagging the first free ascent on the third pitch. 

    Nate continued up the corner, traversing right to avoid a false summit and ended up deciding to move the belay real quick to get to a better stance which I certainly appreciated. He then headed up through a loose chimney feature which I managed to fall on while following... and built a belay right on the top! 

Nate leading us towards summit glory.

Well, actually one more pitch...

The final 5.9 pitch chimney which tops out on the summit of The Throne. The top right steeper bit is where I took the whip following, but luckily Nathaniel sent!

Nate steezin.

Bonkers!

Nate about to begin the descent while being dwarfed by the massive Southwest face of the Upper Doublet.

Summit Selfie

#sorrynotsorry

       

    After reveling in the sun and enjoying being surrounded by massive mountains, we continued on with the descent by traversing skiers right which funneled us into the gulley which we noted earlier for our descent. We were able to scramble pretty far down into the gulley but ultimately it seemed prudent to build an anchor and rap the final 50 meters into the gulley proper. On the way down, we ran into a local who was most likely the cause of all the rocks we heard pin-balling down the gulley during the day (see videos).   

Nate rapping into the gulley.

    Without any hiccups, we quickly got back down to the base of the route where I had stashed my hiking pole and continued following our friend back to where we had stashed our packs. 

The REM Cycle, 5.11 a/b 150 meters (First Ascent: Nathaniel Bowen and Owen Silitch, First Free Ascent: Nathaniel Bowen). Something to note: we later conferred with active Beartooth climber Justin Willis and learned that the name of the formation was called the Throne and that the big corner was climbed by Chad Chadwick "way back in the day". 

    To Nathaniel and Goat, thanks for the memories dawgys... A day not soon forgotten that's for sure! Had a great time out there livin' with you guys.  

Peace