Garrett Peabody crosses past Granite Peak, MT en route to climb the mountain on Sunday, July 18.
Garrett Peabody climbs a boulder near the summit of Granite Peak, MT on Sunday, July 18.
Garrett Peabody descends a switchback below the Froze-to-Death Plateau after climbing Granite Peak, MT on Sunday, July 18.
SAMUEL WILSON Bozeman Chronicle / Daily Report for America
BOZEMAN – Like all beautiful days in the mountains, this one starts in the dark. Wearing running shoes and carrying just enough water to get from spring to spring, my friend Garrett and I started running along the peaceful north shore of East Rosebud Lake and on the Phantom Creek Trail in the Beartooth Mountains.
Our noses pointed upward to other eerie title features still hidden in the night: Plateau of Frozen Death, Mountain of Storms – names recorded in an era when mountains were less a playground, more an adversary. . Yet this landscape doesn’t care about experience and equipment. We were trying to climb Granite Peak, the highest point in the state, and to go up and down we would need the weather, our body, and the mountain itself to cooperate.
Few mountains have such a fitting name as Granite Peak. The top is only granite; huge orange blocks rock above other huge orange blocks. Below, more granite. The summit is humbly hidden in the depths of the Beartooths, its great mass only appearing after many miles of hiking and bouldering. As a climber finally sets eyes on him, the summit towers over a complicated labyrinth of ridges and craggy corridors that both inspire and repel the imagination.
Most people give themselves two or three days to get on and off. I climbed Granite this way in 2017 as a solar eclipse captivated the continent. I enjoyed camping near an alpine lake and the heavy footsteps of a blowing megafauna outside our tent at night. I love the slow moments of an overnight trip with a bag large enough to bring a small box of wine, how my attention is free to focus on the smallest details of the landscape. I also like to move quickly and lightly in the mountains. When Garrett, visiting Michigan, asked me to join him for a day-long ascent of the Granite in July, I eagerly agreed.
