Each time I drive to the park via the Gardiner entrance Emigrant Peak looms in the eastern sky of the Paradise Valley. Emigrant Peak is an impressive geologic structure. It rises steeply more than 6000 feet from the floor the valley. It is a classic, non-technical scramble than rewards climbers with panoramic views of the Beartooth, Gallatin, Madison Range, and Absorka Mountains.
Approach Description:
We chose to park at Gold Prize Trail head. To get there follow the road to Dailey Lake and make a left before the dirt road descends to the lake. Follow the trail through a burned out section of forest. The trail then arcs left and climbs steeply to old jeep track. Follow this section of double track until you spot a creek crossing and trail ascending to the right of a stream. This trail will deposit climbers into a large meadow which slowly ramps up in steepness until a large stand of trees.
Climb Description:
From the meadow you have two choices. The route described on SummitPost.org and in Turiano’s Select Peaks will have climbers follow a fence line on climber’s left into the trees. We did this and made our way through the trees. This is somewhat of a pain, as the slope is about 40 degrees and is forest floor, which does not offer the best traction.
The other option to aim for a large rock formation on climber’s right of the meadow. Gaining this formation, scrambling over scree and talus begins very quickly.
Either route will deposit climbers on the northwest ridge. The ridge is made up of easy class 2 scrambling over 40 degree talus. There are a few short class 3 sections where use of your hand is necessary, but these are very easy. The final summit ridge is quite exposed, especially in early season when snow makes the ridge a knife edge with 50 degree slopes to either side of the climber.
Ascent Time: 4 hours
Descent:
We stayed on the NW ridge to take advantage of the scree and avoid the trees, but otherwise retraced our steps.
Descent Time: 3 hours
Rating:
II Class 2 (Short section of Class 3 scrambling)
I had been eying Gallatin Peak for a few years. It is the largest peak visible from Bozeman and looked to be a great peak to ski. With the huge snowpack this spring, I finally got the chance to climb and ski it this past weekend (6/15/08). It’s quite a haul to get in, but the ski descent made it well worth the trip.
The approach from the North Fork trail head was a very long skin in. It probably totals about 9 miles into Bear Basin, where we made camp, and another 3 miles to the summit. Other parties we ran into were skinning in from the Beehive Basin Trail Head to climb the peak as a day trip. In hindsight this appears to be the wise choice.
Approach Description:
The route is pretty straight forward from the North Fork Trail Head. The trail begins at 7179′ and descends about 100′ in a half mile to intersect a subdivision. Unfortunately, there is no parking allowed at this intersection. The trail is well built for the next mile and half. After two miles a hiking bridge is crossed over the North Fork River. A well blazed trail continues for another mile until it intersects with the Beehive Basin Trail No. 402. It appeared that the skin track to Beehive Basin was actually about a half mile north of the actual trail. The North Fork trail becomes thinly marked at this point. Just follow the river generally north. The key is to round Mt. 9385 on the west side of the river. After this point continue up Bear Basin. The skin track over the divide breaks off well before (half mile) before the charted trail switchbacks up the divide. After that we skied a wonderful 800′ into the Hell Roaring basin and made our way to the base of the climb just right of the prominent rock buttress on the south face.
Climb Description:
We skinned the first thousand feet of the climb before throwing our skis on our packs and kicking steps up to a well defined saddle. From the saddle we climbed the east facing snow field to the summit. This was the steepest part of the climb (~50°). The slope mellows a bit to about 35° for the final 200 feet to the summit.
Descent:
We skied the same line we climbed due to wet slide danger on the south facing bowl.
Rating:
IV 50° (Class 3 in Summer) (via North Fork)
III 50° (Class 3 in Summer) (via Beehive Basin)
