Granite Peak
Don and I set out to climb Granite Peak, the highest point in Montana. We summitted on August 12, 2008 at 11:33am. Along the way we ran into some friendly goats who also love to drink pee.....interesting. We flew into Jackson Hole, WY and drove through Yellowstone and took the Beartooth Highway into Montana. The Beartooth Highway is spectacular!!!! Anyway, we spent our first night camping 3 miles in at Slough lakes. We then hiked up to and across Froze to Death Plateau and set up camp at 12,000 feet! DO NOT GO TO FTD PLATEAU WITHOUT A GPS! NAVIGATION IS CLOSE TO IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT IT! It was very windy, sunny, cold, hot, and beautiful! Definately not the kind of place you would want to stay long, but it is worth seeing!
The altitude affected us both a bit. We had slight nose bleeds, nausea, a resting heart beat of 100 BPM! (mine is usually under 48), and headaches with lightheadeness. This didn't stop us!
We had perfect weather and motivation! We woke up at 5:30am and caught up with a party of 3 people (one of which now only has one more summit to complete his quest of hitting all the US highpoints!) It was super fun climbing (I even led the first pitch while Don led the rest!), downclimbing, and scrambling. We even saw a goat cross the snowbridge and we saw one on the summit! We got back to our tent and moved camp down to the Rosebud Divide. We had a wonderful night and hiked out the next day. On our drive back to Wyoming we saw wildfires. There were firemen camping on the side of the road in tents and a helicopter across the street! It was an exciting few days and we were very proud!
Check out pics at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kfolcik/sets/72157606834207690/