ChoteauCam Trip to Split Mountain (8,792 ft.)
August 1-3, 2007
Climbers: Ralph Thornton, Ron Gruber and April Carr
Copyright Notice

Split Mountain lies between Hudson Bay Creek and the headwaters of Red Eagle Creek. Much of the lower reaches of Red Eagle Creek were severely burned during the Red Eagle Fire of August 2006.

The campsite at the head of Red Eagle Lake, the closest campsite to Split Mountain, was burned out by the fire. Glacier Park trail crews just completed rebuilding the camp in time for use to make this attempt on Split Mountain.

Our hike began at the Red Eagle Trailhead (left).
We soon entered the Red Eagle burn and walked another eight miles through the burned out forest.
After camping the night at the head of Red Eagle Lake, we got an early start the next morning. We had about 7 more trail miles to walk before beginning our climb.

The trail crossed Red Eagle Creek twice. At the first crossing the suspension bridge had been rebuilt.
At the second cross, however, the bridge had been washed away by the floods in the fall of 2006. So we had to practise our water walking skills.

Here April didn't quite manage to stay on top of the water.
As the sun rose in a clear but somewhat smoky sky we got our first good look at Split Mountain.
Ron Gruber leads us up the lower slopes of Split Mountain. Most of the climb is fairly easy class 2 and 3 as seen here. The upper part gets more interesting.

There are several class 4 pitches leading to some good class 5 climbing in the split leading to the summit.

Our route will take us to the flat bench leading out of the top left side of the photo. Then we went around to the back of the mountain and climbed up to the big crack that divides the north and south summits. That crack is not the one seen here in the center of the mountain but it is barely visible on the right.
Above: Before beginning the more difficult pitches April thought is best to pre-visualize the actual climb.

For a variety of reasons the camera remained in my pack for the climb of the upper part of Split Mountain. In retrospect that was a bummer but I can do nothing about it now.

Below Left: We climbed to the highest part of the crack separating the north (and highest) summit from the south summit. We then edged out on a narrow ledge which was about 4-6 inches wide. The farther out on the ledge we went, the more air appeared below us! After a traverse of about 10 feet on this thin and airy ledge we climbed up a crack to the flat shoulder just below the summit. That crack is visible in the lower left of the photo. April and Ron are ecstatic about reaching this spot because they knew the summit was now attainable. This shot is the classic Split Mountain summit shot. Blueing Lake is 2,500 feet below!

Below Right: The final pitch and the cairn containing a register on the summit of Split Mountain.
Ron and April on the summit of Split Mountain.

Now all we had to do was get down!
Looking past the lower south summit of Split Mountain Blueing Lake lies 2,500 feet almost straight down. Mount Norris dominates the skyline but numerous other familiar peaks are visible. These include Triple Divide Peak, Flinsch Peak, Mount Morgan and Mount Phillips. Triple Divide Pass is just to the left of all the snowbanks on the lower slopes of Mount Norris.
There are two options for the descent. One option was to retrace our steps down the crack on the west side of the mountain and down climb several hundred feet of sloping scree covered ledges. This would take some time and since it was late in the day we choose option two.

Option two was to climb down about 30 feet to the east and repel down an 80 foot cliff to a spot from which we could quickly descend to the lower easy slopes.

Left: April Carr on repel.

Below: Ron Gruber was last to descend.