Walking the Garden Wall. If you get scared, stay right and don’t look down.

Originally Posted 8/03/21

Looks like I failed to follow my own rules when I climbed Mt Gould. This is just one mountain that has so many attributes to love. From the Many Glacier side, it is gigantic, colossal, seen from everywhere, and reminds me of the Eiger in Switzerland. Maybe that’s why they call Glacier Park America’s Switzerland? Or that was just a Great Northern RR marketing ploy?

From the back side it’s just another 2000’ bump on the Garden Wall with nothing to make it stand out other than being the part of the saddle with Haystack butte. The real beauty is in the middle (literally). It has what I would consider the best summit views in the park. Unobstructed location, highest thing around, and you can trace that iconic black/grey ribbon in the rock known as a diorite sill (AKA the Purcell lava intrusion between layers of Siyeh limestone) that runs across all the mountains for miles and miles. Good stuff.

I started in fog. But that didn’t stop the steady ribbon of headlights from following me up the Sun Road. I was greeted by a dozen camper vans in the parking lot with their tent tops up. Guess the NPS isn’t enforcing that stuff this year. Two things were funny. One was the group of people at the east end of the parking lot sipping their coffee and wearing blankets waiting for the perfect sunrise that will ever come (they were facing the wrong way). The second was the flood of people hurrying to the Highline Trail, not understanding they would not be seeing anything in the fog for the next three hours. Huh. Rookies.

But this was great hiking weather for me. I knew the day would burn off. Nice and cool all the way to Haystack, and then start searching for the correct break in the black cliffs. The Haystack takes on more of a pyramid shape the higher up you go. Naturally I wanted to shoot for about the 4th couloir over, and counted wrong, so ended up in the 3rd. Lots of small chutes and chimneys. Lots running with water from the prior day’s massive rainstorm. Lots of freshly washed-out scree slopes that were too hard to dig into, or with too much sand mixed under the scree making it akin to walking on a carpet of marbles.

Either way there was more exposure than I would have liked. Only when I topped out (after not seeing a single climbing cairn on my route), did I notice I was about 100 yards too far north of the normal route. At least it should be a little better on the way down. A little. I should be able to beat the nearly five-hour ascent that it took from the car on return. Must be why I saved Gould for an ‘off’ day. Even in the haze you can see the majesty of the place. But the haze did kinda suck.

Looking right down on the Grinnell glacier complex and the Angle Wing. Piegan/Pollack/Bishops Cap right in your face. Even massive Mt Allen and Siyeh could be clearly picked out. I love the ragged Garden Wall. Like something out of a 1930’s King Kong movie. I paid a little homage to Gould on my descent from Haystack pass so I could better trace the route. Who knows, might be here again in the next decade or so. Lot of other opportunities in Glacier competing for my time.

Only one partially rolled ankle and some new shin scrapes on descent. I went down a pretty tight 30-foot chute through those black cliffs. I really should have found a better break. It was kinda hairy. But I was more comfortable with the cliffs going down. Been a long time since I did so much scrambling on all fours (as they say). Will definitely feel that in the upper body in the morning. The soreness is how you know it has been a good day in the hills. Or at least a day where Death just poked you a little bit, like a pinata. Instead of kicking you into Dante’s ninth ring of hell, like an A-hole.