1935

Clouds hung heavy at five yesterday morning before we left town with Dr. Edward Little of the University physics department, and Edith Hall, a grade school teacher. They hung particularly heavy over the Missions which was our goal, and before we arrived at the starting point of the climb, we were definitely in rain - just the usual Johnson luck. The day we climbed the seven and three tenths miles to the top of Mt. Wilson in California, it was rainy and hazy; the weekend we chose to spend in Glacier National Park, it was rainy and snowy. So this wasn't a new disappointment. Mountains will remain everlasting mysteries to me. They always look so simple when I see them from a distance. Even at the bottom of a mountain I can't quite picture big valleys and skiing slopes; lakes and long rapids and falls in their midst. So it was with great interest that we left the main road; and soon after found ourselves following a deep valley with the musical swells of the Jocko River keeping us company. Before we had reached our parking place, we had also seen two cottontail deer that ran across our road and then followed along beside it for a few rods, leaping easily and gracefully across the ground with no more apparent effort than a ball rolling down a hillside.

The rain had stopped when we reached the start of the climb, and there were signs of clouds disappearing. Miss Hall started up the hillside, and I was certainly afraid at the very beginning that I should never be able to keep up with the others; or that I should even be able to make the top. As it happened, I was usually behind. But I did reach the thrilling top, and both of the practiced mountaineers said I did very well for an inexperienced hand.

Perhaps nothing is quite so thrilling as mountain climbing. We left the bottom at seven on a cool, rainy, but otherwise perfectly normal June morning. By 12:30 when we were close to the point for which we were aimed, it was to all intents and purposes a day in mid-winter. On the lower slopes, flowers bloomed, the tamaracks had opened their delicate fernlike leaves, the mountain maples' leaves were half grown; the Kinnikinic flowers showed a fragile pink beneath their dark green everlasting leaves; and the dainty service berry bushes were a shower of white blossoms.

Step, step, step; up and up and up we went. Our leader, then Burt, then Miss Hall; and last of all poor straggling me. Sometimes our trail was definite and easy; then it was almost lost in a maze of windfalls (broken down tree branches); often it was lost entirely and only our guide's experience from previous trips determined our way. Up and over a stump; a few more steps and over another stump. At the higher elevations, there were fewer large trees; fewer windfalls to hoist ones weight over. Then came new snow which had fallen only the previous night or that morning. It was falling as we climbed, and then we were plodding through six inches of newly fallen snow. Our feet became wet and uncomfortable and unpleasantly cold. Here a forest fire had gone through and a new growth of pine trees had started. Most of them were from three to six feet in height and covered with fresh moist snow, and lovely to see. Pushing our way between the snow laden trees, we shook off the snow which showered down to the ground

"How you coming?" shouted back Burt when he noticed I was lagging a bit behind. The party stopped to let me catch up, and to rest themselves.

"You're doing well," the regulars would encourage me. "We're making better time than we do on our usual mountaineer trips."

After all, if one kept going continuously, one couldn't look back to see the scenery. We looked back now, and saw St. Mary's Lake below us; a lake whose outline was like the outer rim of the figure "8" and a pale green color. Clouds still covered the point in the distance toward which we were headed, as well as other mountains in the range - the Rattlesnake - just outside Missoula.

On again. Up and up. Each step raised ones weight a few inches, but it takes a good many inches to raise oneself four thousand feet in the air. Then came our first old snow; a few inches of the old covered by several inches of fresh soft snow. The old snow became deeper and heavier. At one place we walked over a bank of snow six to eight feet deep which was like an overhanging cliff.

About 1200 feet below our destination, we slid into a southern valley and built a fire to warm us and dry our feet, while we lunched before finishing the trip. Here the ground was everywhere covered with several feet of snow, and we built a fire on a stump which we

could clear of snow. The fire was comforting, and believe me, our lunch tasted good.

After a rest of about an hour, we were on our way again. Higher and higher we went; rapidly now, for we were going up the side of a steep shoulder of Gray Wolf, and every step counted. At times we walked in the footsteps of the leader on the smooth sided slope of snow like climbing a ladder; at times we worked our way over rock work, clinging to a cornice here or a tough branch for support. Snow flurries blew in one's face, and the wind was terrible. To look backward was almost fatal unless one had one's foot safely anchored in a few feet of heavy snow. The height was dizzying.

At last the top; the clouds lifted enough at least so we could see what we had come all this way to see - magnificent, spectacular shaggy crested Gray Wolf, one of the most inaccessible peaks in the Missions. Once in a while, the sun even dared to peek through a rift in the clouds so there was a play of lights and shadows on the bleak snow covered peak. At our point of view, the snow was soft and heavy. But on the sides of Gray Wolf, the snow flew about in flurries as it does in cold weather; 1200 feet made the difference in temperature.

Below us, to the left of Gray Wolf was St. Mary's Canyon, and in it a long, lovely rapids. Beyond that, the sides of the mountain called Senelemon. In the distance, the peaks of St. Mary's and Mountaineer Mountains. Below us on the other side lay several small rock bound lakes, still covered with ice. We took some pictures as we could with the intermittent sunlight and started down in another direction.

On this side we walked on deep snow which lay over the rock work, and occasionally one of us would drop down through the snow to a rocky ledge below or sometimes to nothingness, being held up by the surrounding snow. Here were snow slopes which Dr. Little considered dangerous because of avalanches. We retraced our steps. There was no escaping the snowy slopes. He tossed a large snow ball down the sides. Nothing happened except that the original snow ball kicked up more balls and these in turn kicked up more until there was a fluttering of small snow balls that looked for all the world like a flock of white snow birds.

We walked several feet apart then; just in case an avalanche should be started and one of us was covered, the others could dig him out. Nothing happened, however.

Finally reaching an open slope, our leader sat down and slid down the hillside of snow. The rest of us followed on own backsides down a snow slope of perhaps, a hundred and fifty or two hundred feet. It was one of the most thrilling coasts I've ever had.

From then on, our trail was fairly easy. We had a little bit more up hill work until we reached our by-then extinguished camp fire, and finally we were on our downward trip again. When we reached the place where there had been several inches of fresh snow in the morning, with the small pine trees laden with it, we found the snow gone. While we had been a few thousand feet higher up amidst almost eternal winter, the sun had shown its warmth and transformed this region into something resembling spring.