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Mount Cleveland 3191 m

Glacier National Park, USA

Mount Cleveland from Mount Crandell, Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta. Gale force winds blew away the hanging "C" right after I took this picture.

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Mount Cleveland is the highest peak in Glacier national Park, Montana. It sits at the south end of Upper Waterton Lake, and is often climbed by taking a boat ride from Waterton townsite to Goat Haunt, Montana. From there, we hiked 5 km and camped at Kootenay Lakes the first day. Boy, were the mosquitoes glad we came along!

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A foreshortened view of Mount Cleveland from near treeline, showing our route. We took about 2.5 hrs to this point from camp.

A view of the southwest side of Mount Cleveland, west ridge is to the far left. Though it may not look it, there are 1000 metres elevation to gain yet. With no snow, almost any gully would be easy. The lowest rockband is the highest one.

Traversing across a snow slope to reach the first rockband,on a beautiful July morning.

Maybe it is the routes I choose, but there is never a lack of scree...and there is a lot of it on this peak!

This long snow gully was much better than the tedious scree: We were glad to have brought axes and crampons along.

After the final band of black rock below the summit, loose shale and a pleasant walk up a ridge led to the top.

After 8 hours, it was a real treat to be on horizontal terrain again. My partner Sim admires the view north of Waterton Lakes. The cairn did not have a register, but we did leave a Canadian flag, but after just 20 minutes and a late lunch, we headed back down. Our descent route followed easier ground to the left ( when descending) and avoided most snow gullies, taking 5 hours. We missed the 8:05 pm boat back to Waterton though in spite of hurrying, but since we had extra food we spent a pleasant night camped at Goat Haunt.

For those peakbaggers into highpeaks, Mount Cleveland is highly recommended --- but only once!

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