Tobacco Roots Traverse

Having never been into the tobacco root mountains before, I jumped at the opportunity to join Brian for a traverse of the whole range.  The day before, he parked up south meadow creek where we planned to finish and biked to Harrison (thanks!) while I went to the griz game in town.  I then picked him up in Harrison and we drove up cataract creek where we planned to start.

After a few hours of sleep, we were up early and moving by headlamp and bright moonlight to mason lake.  We endured some brief bushwhacking and routefinding difficulties gaining hollowtop mt. in the dark but soon enough found ourselves on top, the high point of the range.  A beautiful sunrise ensued as we began our southbound traverse, headed all the way to south baldy mountain.  

sunrise from mt jefferson

We struck a moderate yet steady pace, running when the terrain allowed but mainly hiking.  The hours and peaks flowed by, until we found ourselves atop granite peak.  We then scree-skied down the E face to granite lake for a water refill, before climbing lonesome peak and continuing south.

Brian giving the mountains a big hug

looking N from granite peak (hollowtop is the furthest peak)

descending to granite lake for water

Branham peak served up the greatest concentration of 3^rd and 4^th class scrambling of the day, which made for slow travel but was very fun.  While downclimbing a short cliffband on the ridge between branham and mt bradley, I had a handhold break off and send a bread loaf sized block tumbling down between my legs, which unfortunately clipped by R knee/quad pretty bad.  Luckily I was able to recover and not go tumbling down the cliff myself but the ensuing knee pain would bother me for the rest of the day and keep me from being able to run. 

branham peak

fun scrambling up mt bradley 

This was especially unfortunate since the terrain from mt bradley and beyond was far more runnable than the northern portion.  We continued along with only a few peaks remaining.  

looking S from mt bradley (S baldy is furthest peak just L of center)

final stretch to south baldy mt

From S baldy, we hiked 3000 or so vert down a steep mining road to Brian’s truck, feeling really good (other than my knee) despite it being a 15 hour outing.  The 90min shuttle predominately on rough roads back to my truck was a little rough but so it goes with big traverses I suppose.

Route:  we bypassed a few unnamed bumps on the ridge and dropped down to granite lake for water but otherwise stayed pretty true to the ridge, hitting the summits of hollowtop mt, mt jefferson, horse mt, little granite, granite peak, lonesome peak, long mt, thompson peak, branham peak, mt bradley, lady of the lake peak, belle pt, porphyry mt and S baldy mt.

Stats: approx. 25mi/10500 vert/class 4 in 15 hrs car-car at moderate pace

Here is Brian's recap of the day.

Rose: a spectacular introduction to the tobacco roots

Thorn: hurting my knee!

Bud: all the great looking ski terrain around bell lake and beyond