Snowy Blackfoot climb proves too much

Departing at 3 a.m. surely meant that we’d be back for dinner that day, my mind told itself as the countless black trail miles fell by the wayside en route to Blackfoot Mountain in Glacier National Park.  

Winter blanketed the surrounding summits stark white as we made our second bitingly-cold creek fording of the morning, shouldering heavy packs loaded for rock, ice, and potential for hungry bears.  

Crossing the first of two major glaciers meant the climbing was close. The resulting excitement rushed into my frozen fingertips, rewarming them as we moved into the shade that would shroud us for the next few hours on this bitter north face.  A tenuous traversing mixed pitch gained us the steepening glacier that accessed the wave-like ridgeline high above. After a short calorie break, we were off, wading through unsupportable graupel snow before reaching steeper and less wind-affected slopes above. 

Moving swiftly we arrived at the ridge where we worked our way through moderate mixed terrain to reach its crest. 

 The Harrison Glacier and its surrounding summits shone with an afternoon light as the rock gear came out and the fun began.  Two pitches through the famed glacier marble on the varied ridge deposited us on the sweeping ridge-top leading to the summit, which was close, but too far for the remaining daylight. 

Like it or not, we headed back.

  The long shadows encroached, yet we still had a plentiful amount of technical terrain between us and the car far below. 

Descending off the blocky ridge proved interesting as the glacial recession made the once moderate step now a three-rappel affair with a v-thread to cross the bergshrund and reach the receding glacier below.  Emptying the tank wasn’t my intention, but the last of my food was now long gone with a glacier crossing, many steep boulder fields, and two creek fordings still standing between me and the car. 

Reaching safe ground just as the sky exploded with hues of pinks and reds had us happy to be off the technical terrain, yet we were far from out of the woods.  

The pink skies departed, leaving us with a starry night and an empty glacial basin between us and the trail. 

One step after another we retraced our steps and crossed one chilling creek after another to reach the car. 

Dinner would have to be chips and a beer as it was now morning, again, some 20 hours after we first departed.