Glacier Mountaineering Society

Fri, Jul 23 2010 - Reynolds Mtn. (View Original Event Details)

Coordinator(s):		Randy Peters
Participants:		Peter J. Markalunas, Rob Kealy, Craig A. Swatland, Jim Young, Ginger Flesch, Patrick Blake, Ray Allen, Kirk Mattingly, Randy Peters

Write Up:
Last year’s attempt on Reynolds Mountain was cancelled due to weather and nearly repeated this year. Neither Reynolds nor Clements were visible from Logan Pass around 8 a.m., and a light, steady rain threatened the climb. I decided to wait out the rain for awhile since Reynolds is a relatively short day. Around 9:30 the rain diminished to a drizzle so I gathered the climbers and we started for the saddle overlooking Hidden Lake where a further determination could be made. After we traversed an expansive and steep snowfield leading to the saddle, the drizzle ended but the peaks were still shrouded in clouds. With some hints of clearing we decided to continue climbing. We scrambled up the large couloir on the west face of Reynolds and then up the northwest shoulder to the start of the “diagonal ledge” across the north face. From a distance, I had observed many patches of snow on this diagonal as well as the east face. While scouting this route two days earlier, I encountered snow only a short way up the diagonal. Reaching this point on Friday, we found some snow had melted, however for safety reasons I decided we would abort the diagonal route on this trip. Without losing elevation we traversed along the base of the cliffs on the west side around to the south face well above most of the scree. Continuing to hug the south face cliff base toward the east until the route through the upper cliffs was clearly visible, we reached the summit by early afternoon and found blue sky and sunshine on top. Unfortunately the surrounding views were only occasionally visible through the clouds racing around the summit. After lunch and photos, we descended the upper cliffs back to the great south side scree slope and gullies leading to the saddle at the Dragon’s Tail. The return trail on the west side above Hidden Lake required some careful navigation across several very steep snow chutes before reaching the first saddle and snowfields back to Logan Pass. Climbers were: Craig Swatland, Peter Markalunas, Kirk Mattingly, Rob Kealy, Ginger Flesch, Randy Peters, Ray Allen, Jeff Young, Patrick Blake and Jim Young.

Have some photos from this event that you'd like to share in our photo album? Please forward them to Tim Anderson at twamontana@gmail.com. Please note that we prefer to receive the photos in approximately 640x480 or 750x500 pixels - do NOT send original high-res photos. If you have a LOT of photos, please submit up to twenty of your favorites (only) for a day event, or up to forty of your favourites for a multi-day event. Thank you.