Cutbank: Primitive. Ignored. Fantastic! How to tame three oceans.

Triple Divide Peak has been on my radar for what must be over 20 plus years. It is just hard to carve out the the time for a 20 mile day, and logistically, it just tough to get to it. It is out the more remote Cutbank area. Which has a five-mile rough dirt road thru open range between Two Medicine and St Mary. It is so deep, your phone (if it does get a signal) will ping off a tower way up in Canada and charge you international roaming fees.

Triple Divide peak is famous because……. water from the summit flows into THREE different watersheds. The Pacific, Atlantic, and Hudson Bay. Now, some argue that since Hudson Bay eventually drains into the Atlantic, it doesn’t count as the third. Yeah, whatever. Today, in spite of covid, the Canada is NOT closed to me.

Even in the days of the GNRR, this place was pretty remote, and only really visited by those on fishing trips. I can see why. The Atlantic creek flows around ten miles right off the Continental Divide with very little drop, quiet and wide, flanked with shade conifers, thru some of the most pristine wetland I’ve ever seen.

I only crossed three people on the trail the entire day. The bulk of the gain only comes a couple of miles from Triple Divide Pass. Being open, you get outstanding views and a true feeling of space as the mountains at the headwall slowly come towards you. You will also feel like a cupcake in a Easy Bake Oven with a 150 watt bulb for three hours.

At least only your neck will get burned, as the Orb of Pain is at you back most of the morning and again in the afternoon. Take lots of electrolytes. The morning started off with a smoke fire sun and a long pasture approach.

The Cutbank entrance is gated and closed this year from lack of rangers, so it adds another mile to hike on both ends. Like I need to pad my stats. But at least it was flat. Quicky rolling into view are some of the biggest and most colorful mtns in the park you have never heard of. Immediately to the left Mad Wolf and Bad Marriage rise into up to the sky.

Eventually Medicine Grizzly Peak with its very long saddle to Razoredge Mtn with a thin snowfield feeding same named lake a few thousand feet below grow into view . Razoredge connects with a razor thin spine to Triple Divide Peak on the far right, which is my final destination.

The climbing route is up the up the steep knife’s edge from the pass, up some class 3 gullies, to an eventual traverse, and I quote from the Climbers Guide: ‘that will look impossible, but will take you across the east face with great exposure to the next saddle where the route is more enjoyable.’ Yeah. Great words of encouragement. The other route is to go down and traverse on the steep scree slopes below the cliffs and climb back up, adding a couple of hours to the day. I took the high route.

Seeing how this route description is over 70 years old and I don’t see a single boot mark in the scree for a half mile, I’m taking staying low as being the worse of the two options. Naturally I climbed too high too fast, and topped out while breaking thru the cliffs to the sheer north side. It provided great views of Norris Mtn and it’s clinging snowfields and melt ponds. Mt James looks pretty impressive from this point (and a much easier scramble along with an extra 1300 feet).

Then I spotted the traverse and a cairn to confirm. Could see a few (very few) boot marks and lots of hoof marks. The next series of photos show a two layered orange band in the rock. The band is about 5 to 8 feet wide in places. I had to walk directly below it on a scree ledge anywhere from 3 feet wide to about 8 inches. Had a rough time going over an especially tight spot, the point in the picture where it passes that outside corner (Mt James in the background). Had to do a kind of lay-out move and hug the rock pretty tight. It was much better going back, and after I passed this point a second time I knew Nancy would not be spending down my 401k alone.  

Grizzly Medicine Lake looked very nice from up here. Once on the saddle of Razoredge it was a comfortable stroll with only a few soft cliffs with easy run outs.

From the summit wonderful views of the valley leading into St Mary to the north. Rare perspectives of Norris, Split, Medicine Owl, Katitos, and Amphitheater mountains. More views into the remote Nyack I often refer with Phillips and Tinkham showing their pointy summits.

Saw one other couple coming up late from the pass to climb but our paths didn’t cross. Bad for them, as they were taking the low route (not unsafe, just adding hours which will cost you the summit). I could hear them arguing when the breeze dropped. Yeah, that relationship is not going to last. Couples need to learn to fight the Grim Reaper together as a team, not each other.

During the late afternoon return I got some good sun on Mad Wolf and Bad Marriage, along with some nice colors on Ampitheather and Kupunkamint. Round trip from the car with summit time ran about 9.5 hours, which I thought was pretty good for the distance and gain/loss (18mi / 3050 feet).

The heat was bad at the end. Drained the last of 3 liters in sight of the car. If I have the time I’d like to return for Mt James. I think that extra 1500ish feet would be a good vantage of the area. Only if it was haze free and I could see color contrasts of these wonderful hills.

Once more I’m finding wonderful parts of the park that no one seems to visit. Oh, yes, I did pee off the Hudson Bay side of the mountain. I have nothing against Canada per se, other than its fun to say I pissed on them. We all have a little bit of middle school left in us somewhere, no matter how much we deny it. Also before I forget this has to be the most awesome Glacier National Park entrance sign that no one will ever see because no one goes to the Cutbank area:-) Hell, I’d put one of these in my front yard.