With summer coming to a close, Kristin and I finally found time for a week-long climbing trip, the last plan in a long line of schemes that stretched back as far as this spring’s trip to Greece. Some got cancelled by work or stomped on by the weather. Others went off without a hitch. For the hopefully successful last hurrah, we chose the Bitterroot Valley in Montana, a place we had never been, in a state that Kristin had never seen. Call the cat sitter and load up the Prius, because we’re headed to cowboy country!
Of course we'd have to get by the stand still traffic jam in the Gorge. Took us three hours to get past Hood River.
We planned on spending most of our time in Blodgett Canyon, having read about semi-alpine granite spires in an unpopulated and beautiful valley.
The receding glaciers of the last ice age carved out thousand foot spires of rock with a southern exposure that would hopefully be warm during late summer days. Neighboring canyons offered good crags and other places to explore. And our friends Melissa and Blase offered to show us around and give us a place to crash the first weekend.
We rolled into town gangsta style in the pimpin Prius on Saturday mid-morning and headed to Kootenai Canyon with Blase for some cragging (we got waayyy into the old school rap on Sirius radio … Backspin yo). Located just south of town, the Kootenai offers fun sport and trad lines with easy access. We started out at the Second Buttress on Pleasant Surprises, a fun 5.8 crack/corner climb that involves a couple of fun roofs on pretty good gear and hand jams.
At the base, I kept gaping at the neighboring line. It looked kinda steep and kinda juggy, which is kinda rare where I’ve been climbing. We pulled the rope and went for a look, and it took about half a second of Kristin’s “hell yeah you should climb that” for me to tie in.
Venus de Milo moves from left to right on slightly overhanging rock up to the big roof moves. The big jug under the roof draws your eye right away, but the holds above look tricky. It took me a few times sorting out the right moves before I figured out how to get past the sloping ledges into the upper part of the climb. Even then, it doesn’t let up much with balancey and reachy moves off of some sloping holds on vertical terrain. Fun!!
We finished the day off by climbing over the fun roof on Look Out its 10d, which is actually only 10b. Man, more fun stuff, climbing up to the roof, clipping the bolt, and then peering over to try to figure out what the moves are before burning out. Kristin was loving it!
The next day, the four of us headed out to Lost Horse, a local crag that had been developed more recently and apparently held some stellar, steep crack lines. Blase gave us the locals tour, and we went up to the Tidepool area, which has a bit friendlier of an approach from the top although its less well known than the main area. The highlight of the day was definitely Jamboree, a 10c pump fest that weaves a route over two roofs split by handcracks and a punishing steep traverse on sloping finger and ring locks.
I headed up with confidence but got shut down at the second roof because I couldn’t sort out the pro quickly enough. But man, what a fine line! I’d love to go back some day and try to send.
I finished the day on a devious route with a great name – the Sleestack. I wish I had gotten some pictures of this thing, because its awesome! It climbs up a hand to fist to offwidth to squeeze chimney crack in a corner. Two thirds up the route, you end up buried inside a vertical squeeze chimney. Above your head, the walls of the chimney extend out further into space, forcing you up and backwards towards the outer edge of the chimney on crimpy faces holds on the walls. At the top, you use a good hand jam way over your head to pull over and out onto the face – crazy! Highly recommended. I didn’t lead it, but if you did you would need probably 1-2 #4s a #5 and a #6 to really feel safe, but there is very little actual offwidth or squeeze climbing because of the face holds on the inner walls. 10c’s a fair grade, but it’ll probably feel harder on lead because of the insane position and the big gear.
The next morning we said our goodbyes to Melissa and Blase and headed down to Blodgett canyon to settle in. After two days of pretty hard cragging, we decided to take an “active rest day,” setting up camp and hiking 2-3 miles up the approach trail to check out the spires. Fine views!
The next day we headed out early to check out the South Face of Shoshone Spire, rumored to be the finest moderate classic in the valley.
We pounded out the approach in about two and a half hours, enjoying the dramatic views of Nez Perce from the gully between the two spires.
You can by-pass the lower buttress with 4th class approach ledges, but we decided to climb the lower pitches to extend the line bit.
The first pitch starts just to the left and around the corner from the lowest portion of the buttress. Climb up some broken ground and then into a left facing corner just a bit more than 100’ – nice and straightforward climbing. Belay from a ledge with good views and then head up more moderate terrain towards the big, obvious ledge below the upper headwall. It’ll likely take you at least two more pitches because of rope drag to get to the ledge, but its very easy terrain.
From here, the climb gets really fun, taking the left side of the upper headwall for about 400’. The first pitch heads up the chimney slot with solid, vertical finger cracks and good pro to a small ledge at about 80’.
The second pitch is probably the real crux. As you move off the belay and look up, there are dozens of crack systems cutting the face from left to right. Lots of the cracks are no more than rounded seams that won’t help much – others are wider but flared – a couple are loose – and if you look hard enough you’ll find the good ones. 150’ of solid 5.8/5.9 climbing brings you to a notch on the ridge. 15 ft. below the notch, look for a traverse left into a final hand crack that will lead you into the belay nook. Sweet!
The third pitch of the headwall heads straight up from the belay and up over a roof and onto the face. I started to head right onto the face lower down, but it looked better heading over the roof so up I went. Once up and over, keep trending right, placing occasional pro on more 5.8/5.9 terrain until you can head straight up through a little chimney and then towards another large ledge on the left side of the face. This was probably the funnest pitch of the route with steep climbing and excellent views.
The last pitch heads around the left side of the arête to the other face and up onto the summit.
All in all, this is a fantastic moderate route with excellent positions and fairly good rock. I would say it goes at III, 5.8+ from the toe of the buttress but I would only recommend the route for solid 5.9 leaders. Choosing the wrong the crack system could result in some really heady and run out climbing, and even in the correct systems I had to run it out a bit and would not have wanted to fall. The climbing is easy, but its no place to be pushing your limits. Expect a long day with the approach and descent and take lots of water if its warm out! We got pretty worked by the sun and ended up pounding Emergen-C like PBRs when we got back to camp.
We took a day off the next day to regroup and then headed back out again to go check out the Afterburner on the South Face of Flathead.
This time we made the 3 hour pound back up the same way, past the base of Shoshone and then across the gully to the ledge the cuts across the south face of Flathead.
We found the base of the route, a fixed line, an old pair of cut up jeans and fantastic views!
Unfortunately, that’s as far as we got. Sometimes things just don’t feel right even though the route should be well within your ability. Kristin had been spooked a bit by the climbing on Shoshone and wasn’t feeling real comfortable. The ledge we were on was really exposed, the initial moves were loose and poorly protected, and we were a long way from the trailhead without having seen another soul in the entire valley.
Sack up or back off? A couple of years ago, I probably would have pushed through the doubts and launched up the cracks in search of fun climbing. But I’ve realized after a few epics that sometimes I should listen to my gut … and my partner (i.e. wife). Unless both people are into it, it isn’t going to be fun. On this day, I had doubts – she had doubts – and I just knew it wouldn’t be fun even if we managed to get it done. So we enjoyed the spot, ate some lunch, packed up and headed back down to the river and our camp. Fine day for a hike!!
Over the next couple of days, we explored the area some more, went up to Lolo Pass to explore some domes, took a dip in the hot springs, and drank beer in the brew pubs. Oh yeah, and we also gawked and gaped at some more of the amazing looking lines in the area. Holy sh*t!!
All in all great week!! Fun fun fun. I’m ready to go back for some more. Who’s in?
