Climbing exhibit to be unveiled during Heritage Days

Mountaineering in Glacier National Park has a long history, and the Glacier Mountaineering Society's new exhibit in the bank vault at Discovery Square in Columbia Falls honors that legacy.

Led by Larry Hiller, the climbing club kicked in $1,000 for materials and created a museum-quality exhibit of photos, media and artifacts.

Behind the glass at the back of the vault, tacked to a wooden backdrop, are a pair of raggedy woolen knickers, a worn-out pull-over sweater and a green helmet - the actual clothing worn by former Columbia Falls resident Terry Kennedy when he climbed the forbidding 3,500-foot north face of Mount Siyeh in September 1979.

To the left, next to a coil of Goldline climbing rope and a vintage tubular-pick climbing tool, are the orange helmet and old leather boots worn by the late Jim Kanzler, Kennedy's climbing partner on the Siyeh ascent.

Sixteen years after the two made history on Siyeh, Tom Cladouhos and his son Trenton made the first winter ascent of Mount St. Nicholas in December 1985. Tom's plastic mountaineering boots and steel rigid crampons sit behind the glass right next to Kanzler's boots.

For sheer endurance, California climber Norman Clyde probably fits the bill as the Park's hardest-working climber. According to a 1923 newspaper article, Clyde set a "world record" by summiting a peak a day for 36 days straight - from mountains around the Blackfoot Glacier all the way north to Many Glacier.

Hiller said the club purchased several photos of Clyde from the Eastern California Museum, in Independence, Calif., for the exhibit, including a color photo of Clyde from the 1970s. Members of the club long ago unofficially named a rocky glacier horn east of Mount Logan after Clyde.

Historic photos of Dorothy Pilley, an English woman who climbed in the Park in 1926, are on display next to Clyde's. A newspaper article described Pilley as a woman "of high intellectual attainment," but noted that she "will have to extend herself somewhat if she equals the achievement of Norman Clyde."

The Glacier Mountaineering Society exhibit will be publicly unveiled during Heritage Days on Saturday, July 30, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Discovery Square building is open to the public on Tuesdays through Fridays from 1-6 p.m.

The climbing display replaces the Joe Cosley exhibit, which was moved to the Museum At Central School, in Kalispell. Museum director Gil Jordan said he expects the mountaineering exhibit will be moved to Kalispell next spring.