Where’s the Half Dome sized chunk of granite in Montana?

Nick Goldsmith wrote:

the rock in glacier is absolute kitty litter. 

east fork I though was really good!

is the road to this lake and these cabins washed out?

Nick,  Floods washed out the Bridge and part of the road just by Sand Dune.   That impacts Cali Ice too.   Road might not be open for a couple of years.    Looks like you are on the Ramp Route in that pic?    I am sure there are tons of routes done by the Dirty Sox club that lay in obscurity to this day.   I took a crack at the Tower of Innocence and took at 40 footer when the chicken head I was standing on gave way -- finished the pitch and the route.  With cleaning, courage and perseverance there is no doubt a lot of great climbs on that Beartooth rock and certainly enough elbow room for folks to spread out.   I think the longest route in the BT is up Sundance Spire -- 23 pitches ~ 2000 feet.

Even though the  cabins are up  there  they are not going to get the road open? We are at the end of a 4 mile  dirt road that washed out in hurricane Irene. I think it might have been because we had a pregnant woman next door but somehow they got us open  in 3 days.  Took several weeks to complete the repairs  but  open  sooner..

Yeah,  that is what they are saying.   If money + labor becomes available maybe the timeline will change.   They opened the BT highway.   Cooke City is still cutoff from Gardner -- meaning that there will be no winter access.  WY DOT has brought up the possibility of plowing from Cody but will need $$.

Definitely 1300-1500 foot “granite” (mostly gniess) faces in the bitterroot. Many 1000ft. Absaroka Beartooth range has some bigger faces. These are remote alpine walls. Some of them may be broken or stepped. Many unclimbed via technical routes. Do they stand proud like halfdome? Well there is a reason El Cap and HD are what they are…

Is there a good guidebook for the Missoula region? Or just Montana in general... I've been looking into schools in Missoula or Bozeman. 

Seth Bleazard wrote:

Is there a good guidebook for the Missoula region? Or just Montana in general... I've been looking into schools in Missoula or Bozeman. 

Missoula does not have a definitive guidebook, but a somewhat unconventional word of mouth ethos. Plenty of information is out there that spreads through the active, albeit fairly small, climbing community. Bozeman has quite a few awesome guides for ropes, boulders and ice. The after work climbing access in Bozeman is much better than Missoula. UM tends to excel for things like Wildlife Bio, Journalism, forestry. MSU is strong in Engineering and Nursing. Visit both and pick your school based on the town and your major. You will find MSO and BZN are very different…

Climbing will almost certainly be better, closer, and easier to find in Bozeman, but in my experience living in Billings for 4 years, I like the city of Missoula 1000× more than Bozeman.

Nick Goldsmith wrote:

Even though the  cabins are up  there  they are not going to get the road open? We are at the end of a 4 mile  dirt road that washed out in hurricane Irene. I think it might have been because we had a pregnant woman next door but somehow they got us open  in 3 days.  Took several weeks to complete the repairs  but  open  sooner..

This is a little more than a washout…

https://youtu.be/uUA7o7HWnOY

Mitch Steiner wrote:

This is a little more than a washout…

https://youtu.be/uUA7o7HWnOY

Holy hell I didn't know it was that bad. That will take 3-5 years with the FS getting funding, contracting an A&E firm to do survey, geotechnical investigation, and PS&E package, put it to bid and then go to construction. 

Not to mention the damage to the trail itself, which seems pretty extreme. So anyone looking to climb anything in the East Rosebud is going to have to take the long trail up from Cooke City. Which is extremely beautiful, and probably much less crowded now that you can't do the 2 car shuttle.

Aaron Kolb wrote:

Not to mention the damage to the trail itself, which seems pretty extreme. So anyone looking to climb anything in the East Rosebud is going to have to take the long trail up from Cooke City. Which is extremely beautiful, and probably much less crowded now that you can't do the 2 car shuttle.

Which is about 20+ miles to Cali Ice. Probably best to just stay in Hyalite 

How is the after work climbing In Missoula?

Mitch Steiner wrote:

Which is about 20+ miles to Cali Ice. Probably best to just stay in Hyalite 

I heard Ouray is pretty nice.

Aaron Kolb wrote:

Not to mention the damage to the trail itself, which seems pretty extreme. So anyone looking to climb anything in the East Rosebud is going to have to take the long trail up from Cooke City. Which is extremely beautiful, and probably much less crowded now that you can't do the 2 car shuttle.

Quite the declarative statement from someone who hasn’t walked (or biked) up there (I assume from your wording). Also inaccurate.

Dallin Carey wrote:

Holy hell I didn't know it was that bad. That will take 3-5 years with the FS getting funding, contracting an A&E firm to do survey, geotechnical investigation, and PS&E package, put it to bid and then go to construction. 

There is another meeting this week that I hope to attend (I've been building roads/infrastucture for 30 years and want to land this contract.) Last I heard you could hike/horseback in from the closure. At the very least they want to "pioneer" a rough road in this fall with a couple bulldozers. 

I am in the process of moving so not sure exactly where my  older  hard drives are so can't find  photos at the moment  but 11 years ago we had a massive hurricane here.  In th first week I thought that  the major roads would be  impassable for a  year or more  but  the whole  state came together and pulled off a  miracle.  One of my friends who has a large  construction company didn't even  ask  permission.  He put his  crews to work  roughing in the  major  east west  highway  that crosses the center of our state. Day 2 and he had full  crews working on it so that emergency vehicles could start  to get through.  Some  towns were isolated for a week or so but we really  bounced back quickly.  Our liberal governor suspended  environmental laws so that machines could work in the  rivers re routing them and using the river gravel.  Storm happened this weekend and most everything was back in business  by xmas..

I’m sure people around here would do something similar but with the NF and even a national scenic river way, I think the construction may be a little more difficult. They just made it a national scenic riverway in 2020 I think. 

http://www.woodandironworks.com/beartoothclimbing/listofclimbs.html

Good luck 

ginger wrote:

Ooh where dat?!