Glorious traverses on a great day.

Original Post Date 7/23/2021

Today the goal was Mt Reynolds (9125’) at Logan Pass.  Nice little 4.5 mile round with about 2600 gain. At least, the was the plan.   Most of the peaks I’ve climbed in the park were in the summer of 1986 and very few of them I have revisited over the years.  

This one was always a favorite because of placement and views.  With a 4am up and out to get a coveted parking spot, I planned to be geared-up and on the trail by 6am.  I also sucked down a half-pack of second-hand smoke. A dozen bikers parked next to me and immediately lit up.

Nothing says ‘I love nature’ like puffing on a Winston (and for you Kid Rock fans out there, I’ll add ‘drinking a 4-0’). I had to move my camp chair so I could lace up my boots upwind and not cough.

As I started up the trail, I realized I forgot the 11th Essential hiking item.  My iPod.  And then my sunglasses.   This means two items.  

First, I would be stuck with six hours of silent dialog with Internal Dave.  Which is a very long time as he can be kind of a dick and rattles on and on about nothing forever. 

Second, the eyes are the mirror of the soul.  So when I return to the car via the very popular and over populated Hidden Lake Trail, everyone will be able see the scorn and judgement I was trying to hide. 

My eyes might give away that when I smile and say ‘Excuse Me’ a thousand times to get past people walking four across on the narrow boardwalk, I’m really calling their mother a whore and cursing the day of their birth.  Clearly overstated. But Oh Bother. I need to work on my hiker/tourist social coexistence.

The approach to Reynolds was different from what I recalled.  The NPS did the same thing as with the Oberlin climbing trail.  Rerouted it to keep climbing traffic from tearing up the meadows, put big signs to stay on the trail right next to it.

Then you need to know you can ignore it.   Kind of like OSHA – it’s more important to know the exceptions to the rules than the actual rules themselves.  As if the NPS took a move from the Monte Python playbook. You be the judge.

The trail was so wonderful I missed the cut off to the southwest ridge route.  So, I kept going to a secondary route.  Gained my elevation and needed to traverse either West or East. 

I chose poorly.  After about 4000 feet of traversing the wrong direction on some pretty exposed cliffs, I find myself just 500’ short of the summit with some pretty nasty rock faces that I didn’t feel comfortable taking on solo. 

So then started backtracking, staying higher than my original route, which has changed a lot over the year.  A once beautiful 1000’ scree slope has been cut up into dozens of boots scarred troughs.  Worse, there were above five fools above between me going for the summit. 

They weren’t dispersed, on the loose scree instead of the solid cliffs, kept kicking loose rocks, and I was right smack in the middle of their fall line. 

I also had some commentary while I was up there playing on those cliffs:

Had to the the call. The wind picking up, the smoke coming in, a mile plus of side-walking on sore ankles and I would have to try and pass those climbers without eating a rock. Nope. It made more sense to call it good and save for another day.  I think that’s why I stopped climbing and went more to long backpacking trips. 

With climbing you always felt let down if you didn’t hit the summit you were going for.  That’s the problem with a singular focus.  But I’ve learned to broaden that narrowed perspective and take in what I would have otherwise missed.   In this case, that was quite a bit.

I found this unmarked climber’s trail was a hidden gem.  Tourist stay off it, and it went literally on and on to several other valleys.  It wrapped Reynolds to another ridge, and even gave access to several other peaks and high points in the area.

I would drive to the pass the just hike some of the local ridges off of it for the great views, and you could still stick in 8 mi RT w/out doing real climbing.  Hidden Lake has an active sow with two cubs feeding.  That might not open up until pretty late in the season, which will cut off access to about five peaks I was hoping to get to this summer.  Lot of wildlife on the trail. I had a big horn sheep, a marmot, and mountain goat basically pose for me.  I felt like a Sears Studio for a bit.

 Inner Dave was talking to Outer Dave when I was lining up a photo of Clements, and suddenly this Amish girl standing on a rock popped out of nowhere. She said Hi and scared the hell out of me.  Yeah, full bonnet and dress standing up there on a big red boulder off the climbing trail.  I guess she was following the goat I has passed earlier. Lucky I didn’t bear spray her by accident.  I bet that would have made the national news as some kind of hate crime. 

I had a couple more miles until the boardwalk. It was sunny, blue sky with little haze. And peaceful.

Then I hit the main trail.  Which is mostly boardwalk.  Wow.  Flip flops, yoga pants, two-year-olds crawling, groups of 20 somethings in the middle of trail just talking about how it sucks their phones won’t work.  All of this made the parking lot situation below look normal.  And why do family’s walk three across?  They all got a token ‘Excuse Me’ with scornful eyes. 

I got behind this young couple who for some reason had to hold hands as they hiked down the trail and were oblivious to everything else.  Hats off to true love, but maybe show a little self=awareness on the trail. After all, I’ve got to get to work. I finally politely asked to pass, and they let the hands go and went to different sides of the trail and made me walk between them. Really?

Is hiking single-file a thing of the past? Must we never leave our soul mate out of our peripheral vision (for Hillary Clinton, the answer is ‘Yes’?  Inner Dave said ‘that will never last’ as I walked between them.  Their heads turned.  I guess it was Outer Dave talking instead.  ‘Don’t look back’ is my motto this summer.   As well as ‘don’t forget your iPod.’ 

Inner and Outer Dave need time apart. Otherwise worlds could collide. Plus it makes me a little snarky.