Before going any further, we need to give a shout out to one of our favourite web-sites, and source of mapping for most of our wilderness outings. http://www.wilderness.net/ You can get great topo maps and wilderness area descriptions on this site for anywhere in the USA, and even Alaska! :).
Blodgett Canyon is one of more than ten east-west oriented ones that dissect the 2500-3100m highest portion of the Bitterroot Mtn. range, just south of Missoula. Many people, ourselves included, feel that it also has the most stunning rock walls in it's lower reach.
After returning to Missoula last March, your editor decided to take in as many of these canyons (all of which lie at least partially inside the protected Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area) as possible this past summer. Most of them have maintained trails that start at public trailheads, and head straight in for 10-20km, usually ending up at lakes beneath cirques/headwalls, with only gradual elevation gains for the most part. Today on our 14K hike, we started in at the Blodgett Canyon trailhead the day after a weak Arctic front brought a dusting of snow in this area (though we got 4cm at home in Missoula :) ), and cooler temps. It was about -10C heading in from the trailhead and got progressively cooler as we got further up. I had thought originally it would be nice if we could ski in here, but no such luck, at least for the first 6K in. The trail was melted slush with footprints that flash froze into solid bumpy ice, with just a touch of powder from last night, on it. Even with our Katoolah shoe chains/spikes, we had to be really careful.
Right from the start though, it made us feel alot warmer just seeing the bright winter sun shining on the north wall of the canyon. This trail stays fairly in the middle the whole way, and was completely shaded. Good thing it does too, we heard several rock-falls, probably coming from the sunny south-facing wall. The combination of melting/re-freezing snow getting into cracks/crevices continually weathers these sheer rock faces into these strange shapes.
One of the reasons we wanted to return here, after two other hikes last summer, was to see how the ethereal "Stargate" Arch (our term for this strange un-named feature) looks with snow/ice on it. Looking very beautiful today. It can only be seen for about 1.5km between 5.5-7km in from the trailhead, far up on the south wall, at about 1000m above the trail. I had to use 35-60X zoom on my Canon SX40 to get these images of it.
We assume this bizarre feature formed over the millennia since at least, if not before, the ice ages, through similar weathering processes, as the surrounding rock walls. But can we really be sure? Or is there something more to it? We tried brushwhacking up to it from below last Aug., but didn't get very far, too much bouldering and heavy downed slash. Not good for my still-recovering left leg, which I broke very badly two years prior.
The only way we can think of to reach it would have to be from the Canyon Creek trailhead, up Romney Ridge, then along it. Or, from a higher starting point about 8K in on the Canyon Creek trail. Either way, it would require a full day to devote just to that, and too dangerous/arduous in winter.
Blodgett Creek was still running fairly high, it'd been mild for several days until late yest. with the snow level as high as 2000m at times (the canyon floor starts at 1200m and slowly ascends).
Our associate editor Mattie didn't partake too much of the frigid water, but our research assistant Kluane did, and at one point we became quite nervous, as if he lost control, could have plunged through icy rapids.
Kluane tends to roam around quite a bit in on our outings in his duties, and so it was decided he needed to dress up a bit, so that he won't look so much like a strange Sno Beest, but a friendlier, albeit unusual one. And what better way to do so than to re-purpose your editor's old neckties, from when I filled in occasionally on the Alaska Weather show, taped live at the KCAM PBS-TV studios in Anchorage, 2010-11 :). He looks rather swank in them I'd say, but he'll only put them on for longer outings.
Ice was just starting to form on the ponds in the chill shaded -12C air 6K up the trail, but a little open water was left for some mirroring. Of the much heavier snowpack, further up the canyon. Over the last several days, westerly flow dumped much more snow further in the Bitterroot crest, while areas to the east, toward the Bitterroot Valley were downsloped. Hence the lack of snow even above 2000m on the rocks near the trailhead. You'll see alot of fire scarring on all these Bitterroot Mtn. canyon trails, there have been many large fires in them over the past 20 years, with 2000 being an especially bad year (I worked on a fire near Darby, MT that Aug.). We'll talk more about wildfires and the increasing trends seen with global warming, and what it means for our region in future articles. We just hiked a total of 7K up, about 1km past the bridge over Blodgett Crk., then the snow began getting too deep at this point. It would have been great skiing from this point on, the snow was deeper and not icy underneath, very little foot traffic from here on out. But that would mean having to haul skis/boots in. A good 15-20cm powder dump starting at the trailhead would fix that up though.
I wish I could have skied in here, could have gotten much further in. But at least on the way out, I got to hug this large 1.5m diameter old-growth Ponderosa Pine. It survived the latest fire in here and sure is beautiful. Also wanted to build up my bona-fides as a true tree-hugging dirt-worshiping white wine/craft beer-guzzling granola guy! Cheers.
No comments:
Post a Comment