Glacier Mountaineering Society

Sun, Jun 17 2012 - Stanton Mountain (View Original Event Details)

Coordinator(s):		Tim Anderson
Participants:		Tim Anderson, Carly Hohf, Jerry Moore, Jesse Manning, Denis Twohig, Shirley Twohig, Keith Kratzer, Nancy A. Riva, Jerry Anderson, Wayne, Jim Boyer

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Write Up:
Things were nice when we arrived but the instant we hit the trail it started raining, some people got out their rain gear, which had to come off just a few minutes later as the sun started overheating us. That really describes the whole day. We had Sun, Clouds, Wind, Rain, and Hail alternating all day. As the old saying goes; “If you don’t like the weather in Montana, wait 5 minutes”. Stanton is a simple short scramble but still takes a lot of effort, its only 3.5 miles to the top but you gain 4500ft of elevation in that short distance. This was Father’s Day so we had a couple guests. I brought my Dad, and Gerry Moore brought along his son. Not being regulars to mountain climbing they both did quite well. In spite of his 68 year old bum knee dad still made the summit, though it did give him a lot of trouble the during the decent. Our timing was off a little, we hit the summit while it was completely engulfed in clouds with 20mph winds with hail. So we didn’t stick around long. But after descending maybe 5 minutes we look back and see the summit clear as a bell with the sun shining on it. We stopped for lunch at the one flat spot on the ridge about 900 ft below the summit. We started to see the occasional lightning strike on the ridge next to us during our decent. Then the heaviest rain of the day hit and kept coming all the way down the steep wooded section of the route. Pouring so hard the old climbers trail was becoming a river of mud, making things really slick, several people slipped and fell in the mud. Though the heavy rain did have the nice side effect of chasing away the mosquitoes, which had been really thick and relentless during our ascent. We arrived back at the trail head 7 hours after we had left for a tail gate of chips, salsa, watermelon, and beer. In spite of the unsettled weather everyone agreed it was a wonderful day.

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.