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| Mt Evans from a distance. With less than a week to go in our odyssey to move out of our house and set off to New Zealand, and with about 10 days of packing, cleaning, and carpentry work under my belt, I was feeling the need to get out of town and into the high country. People say, "There'll be mountains in New Zealand to visit." But we'll be heading down in the dead of winter, and I am deeply connected to some places here in Montana, particularly the Pintler Range, up near our ski hangout, Discovery Basin. So on a whim, I headed out of town yesterday and 9:30 am (too late really) and made it up to the Twin Lakes trailhead by 11:15am -- closer than you might think. Since the backpack I did with the kids last fall up in this part of the Pintlers, I have wanted to bag Mounts Howe and Evans. On this trip, I opted for Mount Evans because it would take me to a new lake basin, containing Lake of the Isle. Mount Howe will have to wait. The hike up on a logging road through clear-cuts to Twin Lakes is a bit dull, but the day was "blue bird", and it was nice to have unobstructed views of the peaks. At Lower Twin Lake, a faint trail heads left and up to Lake of the Isle. This little visited lake is a classic alpine gem, but I didn't have long, so I scooted past it up to the upper (no name) lake, and then up to a saddle on the connecting ridge to Mount Evans. To this point, it was three non-stop hours of hiking at a good clip, and the last steep-and-loose bit to the saddle coupled with the still-long and technical ridge walk to the peak gave me pause to consider turning around. But I persevered and headed up, one more hour, to the peak. On the way down, the going was loose, which made me nervous, and low-and-behold, I slipped and slammed my knee on a sharp rock. This didn't hinder my hike out, but I ended up needing 10 stitches and a trip to the emergency room when I got back to Missoula. |
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| Looking at Mt. Howe from Mt. Evans. |
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| From Mt. Evans looking east along the divide and the way I hiked up. |
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| Looking west toward West Goat Peak, the Pintlers highest. |
2 comments:
The three pictures at the bottom of this entry were taken by Butte's Ecorover, who has a nice blog of his own that I recommend checking out.
Fantastic blog. I love the mix of inner and outer worlds. Thanks for writing, posting, and reflecting on the events of the past few years. I hope to read more.
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