By Carolyn Bulin
Summer is “peak season” not only because of the peaks in tourist numbers, but more importantly because summer is the time to climb peaks, when snow has mostly melted in the high country and summits become more accessible without the need for crampons or ice axes.
At 11,372 feet tall, Eagle Peak is the highest point in Yellowstone National Park. In spite of this fact, most Yellowstone visitors never hear of Eagle Peak, and even fewer see it. Nestled among the tall peaks of the Absarokas on the remote southeastern boundary of the park, Eagle is far from the busy roadways and bustling tourist attractions, just barely visible – if you know exactly where to look – from a scant few locations in the park’s popular front-country.
Out of sight and out of mind to most visitors, Eagle’s mystique for backcountry enthusiasts is only enhanced by the notorious “Keyhole,” a narrow passage through a crumbling cliff band high on the mountain that truly is the key to reaching the highest point in Yellowstone.
For years – more than a decade, in fact – I’d read about Eagle, tried to pick it out amongst its Absaroka brethren, and dreamed of climbing it in the far-off-dream sense of never believing it would actually happen. So when my brother Rob and I got the rare opportunity of both of us having the same three-day weekend in the middle of summer, we knew we had to go for it.
Even in the height of our hiking days, when we were routinely hiking 20 miles in a day and sometimes 40-60 miles in a weekend, we knew we needed three full days for Eagle: Day one would be the hike in along the Shoshone River from near Yellowstone’s East Entrance to set up a base camp near the saddle on the shoulders of Eagle; day two would be summit day from our base camp; and day three would be the hike back out.
With packs loaded with overnight gear, we began the trek along a heavily-traveled horse outfitter trail up the Shoshone River. Horses don’t mind crossing rivers, and neither do their riders – but for hikers who change their footwear from hiking boots to river-crossing sandals at each ford, numerous river crossings quickly become tedious. You can often tell when the trail you’re hiking along has been designed with outfitters rather than hikers in mind, because it will weave back and forth across creeks without a second thought – and that is just what this trail did. Most of the fords weren’t particularly difficult, although one was thigh-deep, swift, cold, and scary; but each was more annoying than the last.
Nevertheless, we soldiered on, enjoying the beautiful scenery, the nice weather, and the lush vegetation supported by the nutritious Andesitic soils of the Absarokas. Within central Yellowstone, most soils are rhyolitic, the material ejected by the Yellowstone volcano during its most recent eruptions. Rhyolite is a volcanic rock that is rich in silica (which plants don’t require in any appreciable quantities) and poor in most other nutrients. At the elevations within Yellowstone, thin, young, poorly-developed rhyolitic soils support monotonous stands of lodgepole pines, and not much else.
In contrast, the Absarokas are comprised of older, richer volcanic material called Andesite from volcanic activity that shaped Yellowstone about 50-70 million years ago, prior to the arrival of the current Yellowstone Hot Spot. Andesite is quite rich in magnesium, iron, and other nutrients critical for plants, and the Andesitic soils of the Absarokas support diverse mixed-conifer forests with lush understory.
As we hiked through the vibrant green of the Absaroka forests, I contemplated the origin of the name of this vast mountain range. The word Absaroka is the traditional name of the people whom English-speakers call the Crow; it is their name for themselves, and means “children of the large-beaked bird.” It is highly likely that the Absaroka people refer to the raven, which is common and conspicuous throughout the Crow people’s homelands; but, English-speaking trappers and settlers (mis-) translated the name to Crow, butchering the pronunciation almost beyond recognition along the way. The word that is spelled as if it should be pronounced “ab-sa-ROE-ka” is more properly pronounced with only three syllables and a combination R and L sound in the middle, which English speakers have trouble replicating in speech or in writing: “ap-SAHRL-ka.”
As we approached Eagle Meadows, with Eagle Pass looming above us, we smelled smoke. Momentary concern faded as we saw the horses and then the people who had set up a horse-packing base camp in the scenic meadows at the base of Eagle Peak. Stopping only momentarily, we then began the final trudge up Eagle Pass to find a suitable location for our own base camp, the jumping-off point for tomorrow’s epic ascent of the tallest peak in Yellowstone.
The day dawned clear and crisp, as days in the mountains often do. Yesterday’s heat had been scrubbed from the air by the dew of a clear mountain night, and the freshness of the morning made it seem like anything was possible. We knew we had a big day ahead of us, and my stomach and my psyche were full of the fluttering butterflies that in a former life would have been the prelude to an important hockey game. Today, our challenge was not a formidable sports opponent, but rather an intimidating peak, and the question of whether or not we possessed the conditioning, fortitude, judgment, and luck to accomplish our goal. Would the weather hold? Would we find The Keyhole?
After a quick breakfast, we began our climb. The morning remained clear, calm, and beautiful as we ascended first toward Eagle Pass, where we stopped along the park boundary for a short snack break while contemplating the rugged mountain in front of us. Eagle Peak, like other peaks along the eastern boundary of the park, is comprised of Absaroka Volcanic debris: poorly-consolidated volcanic conglomerates from ash flows, mud flows, lahars, and other debris flows. At the time that the Absaroka Volcanics were active, around 50-70 million years ago, the climate here was much warmer and wetter than it is today. Some of the flows of ash, mud, and debris buried the vibrant forests that were growing on the flanks of the massive volcanoes, petrifying the redwoods, magnolias, and other species that tell us of that verdant climate of long ago.
Volcanic conglomerates look like piles of rocks of various sizes embedded in a matrix of concrete. A well-consolidated conglomerate can make for great climbing with ample holds for your hands and feet, but a poorly-consolidated one is downright dangerous because what looks like a magnificent hand- or foothold will simply break off if you so much as look at it the wrong way. As our colleague Jim Garry says, “If you find a good hand-hold while you’re climbing in the Absarokas, you should break it off and take it with you so you can use it again next time.”
We were about to find out just how right Jim was. As we followed a chute of loose Absaroka Volcanic crap toward the summit ridge, the rock threatened to give way at every slight movement. At one point, we found ourselves very slightly off-route and on a steep, narrow, sloping ledge above a tall cliff, where my nerve was lost. As I began to hyperventilate, thinking I would surely slip and slide off the mountain, Rob calmly talked me back to the relative safety of the correct route.
Onward and upward we continued, in search of the illusive and critical Keyhole. The Keyhole is a narrow hole in the imposing upper cliff band of the mountain, which allows a climber to sneak through rather than to scale up the final and most critical section of the route to access the upper mountain and summit ridge. Finding The Keyhole means Eagle Peak doesn’t require any technical climbing – which is, in fact, the key to summiting Eagle, since the Absaroka Volcanic crap isn’t strong enough to hold reliable climbing anchors.
The tiny hole in the cliff band is so narrow that even I – at five-foot-two and 125 pounds, not a large person – had to wriggle through it, and we brought 30 feet of light rope to haul our small summit packs up behind us since it’s not feasible to carry even a light daypack with you through the cramped chimney.
But wriggle through it we did, and we found ourselves emerging into the sunlight along a ledge no wider than our feet. Inching along the ledge, we soon accessed the summit ridge, and for the first time since we began planning this adventure, I believed that we might actually make it to the very top of Yellowstone!
Finally, after 3 hours of hard and scary scrambling over the loose Absaroka Volcanics, we reached the magical elevation of 11,372 feet. We felt like we were on top of the world! Nestled among the loose rocks on the summit was an olive drab Forest Service fuze can containing the small, green, hard-covered U.S. Government notebook that was the official summit register for Eagle Peak. I had a notebook just like it in my room back in Gardiner, containing quotes and notes that I frequently referred to while teaching field classes. But this one was somehow different. As an official U.S. Government document, this one would eventually be collected and immortalized in the U.S. archives at the Heritage and Research Center in Gardiner – the official archives and collections of Yellowstone. As we paged through the book, we saw signatures from previous climbers, including several names that we recognized as friends and colleagues, and we also noticed that nobody had yet signed the book in 2013, making us the first on record to summit Eagle that year.
Knowing that whatever we wrote in that book would eventually become part of Yellowstone’s official historical record, we wanted to make our remarks count. Rob gave a shout-out to his fabulous coworkers (and budding lifelong friends) in the park’s employee recreation program, while I got philosophical and recorded some lyrics from songs that had guided my dreams of working in Yellowstone and of someday summiting Eagle for many years: “I climbed a mountain, and I turned around // And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills…” from the timeless Fleetwood Mac, and then the lyrics from a park ranger’s evening campfire program that we had attended more than ten years prior at Colter Bay Campground in Grand Teton – lyrics I had often silently hummed to myself as I pursued the dream that I was now living out:
“Have you ever seen the sunrise turn the sky completely red?
Have you slept beneath the moon and stars, a pine bough for your bed?
Have you sat and talked with friends, though a word was never said?
Then you’re just like me and you’ve been on the loose.
“On the loose to climb a mountain, on the loose where I am free
On the loose to live my life the way I think my life should be.
But I’ve only got a moment, and a whole world left to see,
So I’ll be searching for tomorrow
On the loose.”
As we sat atop the peak and took in the view, we could see Yellowstone Lake, a smoke plume from a wildfire to the southeast, and a huge expanse of the most remote country in the Lower 48: The legendary Thorofare flanked by the jagged peaks of the Absarokas, magnificently wild country that we are privileged to call home.
I barely remember the hike down, down the summit ridge, along the narrow ledge, down through The Keyhole, down through the chute, down to Eagle Pass, and back down to base camp. I vaguely remember eating something for supper, and I recall my bone-deep exhaustion as I collapsed into my sleeping bag before dark, feeling more exhausted than I’d ever felt and also feeling a tremendous sense of accomplishment and relief.
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