Glacier Mountaineering Society

Sat, Aug 31 2013 - Heavens Peak (View Original Event Details)

Coordinator(s):		Tim Anderson
Participants:		Tim Anderson, Rodney Falkenberg, Brad Moehlmann, Rebecca Bodnar, Michael Halm

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Write Up:
We arrived at the trail head in the dark an hour before sunrise. Using headlamps we forded McDonald creek. By the time we dried off and put on our hiking boots there was enough twilight to start heading up the main creek bed out of the Heaven’s basin that leads to the East Face Route. I had estimated even with the early start we would be back down by 8pm just 20 minutes before sunset.

The trip up the creek was fun, mostly working up smooth rock shelves with the occasional bushwhack in to ultra-dense Yew, Alder, and Devil’s Club. After reaching the moraine basin below the mountain we climbed up a gully on the north side to reach the Glacier Wall Ridge, then walked that ridge to the great rock slab below the headwall. I was so impressed having seen pictures of this made me wanted to travel this route, but seeing it in person it is so much larger than I had imagined, an incredible sight. The slab was easy to walk for most of the distance, but it curves getting steeper as you ascend, the last 50 feet or so became so steep that it became difficult to keep our footing, a problem I would come to regret on our decent.

When we arrived there was already a group of five at the summit that had climbed via the North Ridge route. We spent about a half hour eating lunch and taking photos before heading down at 2pm.

On the descent I lost my footing on that upper slippery section of the slab and took a slide. I ended up a little bloody and dislocated my right shoulder. Everyone else made it through ok. Thanks to a little field first aid book from Brad's kit, Mike was able to put my shoulder back in place.

The rest of the trip down was quite challenging using only my left arm. All members of the team were very supportive. I want to say Thank You to Mike, Rodney, Brad, and Rebecca for all their help in dealing with this situation. My injury slowed us down a little so we ended up reaching the lower dry stream bed in the same slight twilight we had in the morning and it was completely dark for the stream crossing back to our cars.

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.