November is lung cancer awareness week

And Nov. 19 is the Great American Smokeout. If you're reading this and you smoke, buy up some gum and take a break from cigs for the day. See if you like it.

Several smoking things to update today and tomorrow. For today:

Trial under way over South Dakota smoking ban

This case keeps getting more and more convoluted. The South Dakota State Legislature passed a smoking ban, but bar and casino owners collected signatures to put it to a public vote. However, the state found enough invalid signatures to say the initiative wasn't valid. Then, bar and casino owners sued.

Now, it's the trial. It sounds like the whole thing might boil down to a whopping 18 signatures -- that how short the casino and bar owners came up. Arguments will probably last into next week and hopefully the judge will make a quick decision.

Tobacco ban at the University of Montana

The University of Montana just adopted an extremely strict tobacco ban. You can't use tobacco products *anywhere* on campus, not indoors, not outdoors, and you can't just not smoke either. No chew or snus (because they didn't want to discriminate against smokers).

Friendliest countries for smokers

This is actually kind of cute. It would be funny to read the rants at Topix from smokers saying "Ill never vacation there again" whenever some state passed a smoking ban (really, I haven't read those rants in months, now. Same 10-12 people over and over and it's too toxic). There aren't too many places left in the U.S. where they can still smoke, unless they like vacationing in Alabama or Mississippi. Well, here's a list put out by the L.A. Times of the friendliest countries to smoking tourists. I'm still not quite sure if this article was meant to be tongue-in-cheek or not. These are all countries that have extremely high smoking rates, lax smoking laws or smoking laws that aren't enforced (Greece):
1) Greece
2) Russia
3) Nauru
4) Austria
5) Belarus
6) Samoa
7) Bosnia and Herzegovina
8) Laos
9) Hungary
10) Serbia
Serbia, Russia, Nauru, Belarus, Hungary, Bosnia and Laos? There's some pretty happenin' tourist hot spots.
Oh, well, there's always Greece and Austria, I guess....

Australia bans smoking in cars with kids

More than 400 people have been ticketed in South Australia so far under a new law banning smoking in cars with kids .... and I bet all 400 of those people were driving on the wrong side of the road.

Nicotine vaccine in the works

I just read a big article about this in Discovery magazine, but couldn't find a link on their Web site, so here is another link. Apparently, some progress has been made and $10 million is being sunk into researching a promising lead on a nicotine vaccine -- a vaccine that would break the addictive hold of nicotine by teaching the body's immune system to attack nicotine molecules and keep them from entering the brain. Interesting stuff. Chantix has some success, but it's a high-risk drug and doesn't actually go after nicotine molecules.

St. Louis passes smoking ban -- by a lot

St. Louis passed a smoking ban Tuesday, quite overwhelmingly, with about a two-to-one margin.

St. Louis was one of the biggest cities in the country without any kind of smoking ban whatsoever. Those honours currently belong to San Antonio, Texas, and Indianapolis, Ind.

Now, I'm sure opponents will make a big issue about the fact that only about 20 percent of the electorate voted. Whatever. They didn't get the vote out. They didn't rally a movement against it.

St. Louis is also a stronghold of anti-smoking ban sentiments, with one of the major leaders of the movement based there. (He used to be on Topix a lot, but bailed months ago. I think he figured out it was a big waste of energy.), so I wouldn't have been shocked if this measure failed. The fact that it passed so easily is a good thing.

Now, I fully expect appeals to be filed, restraining orders requested, etc., etc. They did the same in Kansas City. Again, whatever. These lawsuits virtually always fail. I can't believe they keep filing them, frankly.

This is not a comprehensive smoking ban. It has some loopholes. Bars that don't serve food will be exempted, as well as bars that only get a small amount of revenue from food.

Smoking ban follows in Montana

Here are two follow-up articles about Montana's smoking ban, both written by the same reporter, who I know for a fact smokes and likes to smoke in bars.

Apparently, this smoking reporter just figured out, oh my god, there's a smoking ban and I can't smoke in my favourite bar, anymore!

Anyway, the first article is actually pretty interesting about how the law applies to bars on the Flathead Reservation, or bars not necessarily on the Rez, but owned by Tribal members. It's actually pretty fuzzy.

The second article is kind of a "well, duh" variety. It's about how enforcement in Montana is being driven by complaints, which everyone but this particular reporter already knew. He apparently just figured it out. Anyway, it does kind of highlight that in small Montana towns like Ronan, enforcement is going to be a bitch. A bar owner in Ronan is quoted saying he's not going to enforce the smoking ban in his bar and smokers have rights, too, blah, blah, blah. Whatever.

Anyway, all someone has to do is call the Lake County Health Department and make a complaint and they will respond. It's like this in many states.

Another issue with Montana's smoking ban is whether you can use e-cigs in bars. The State Health Department initially said you could not, but I got an angry comment that that was all a lie. Sure enough, I have seen e-cigs being used in Charlie B's, and no one is stopping them, so they do not appear to be against the rules. They don't give off any odour at all, but I'm not sure I'm wild about being exposed to other people's nicotine-soaked steam.

St. Louis votes on smoking ban

St. Louis is one of the biggest cities in the country without any kind of smoking ban. (I believe San Antonio, Texas, is the biggest), but voters there will be going to the polls Nov. 3 to decide on a smoking ban. I have no idea how this is going to turn out. I wouldn't be totally surprised to see it go down because Missouri is pretty weird about smoking controls.

The other thing that will make this interesting is that one of the more vigilant anti-smoking ban activists in the country lives in the St. Louis area and I've seen his name splashed all over these stories. So, it's taking the smoking ban fight right into the belly of the beast.

New Surgeon General lost a parent to lung cancer

The new Surgeon General's, Regina Benjamin, mother died of lung cancer (and her father died of diabetes and her brother died of AIDS), so I'm hopeful that she will take smoking issues seriously in her position.

Lots of smoking updates

Here are a few updates from Montana and around the country regarding smoking issues:
First in Montana, two more updates to the state's new smoking ban. First, after one week of the state's smoking ban, it has received a total of seven complaints of non-compliance. Seven complaints in one week! So much for people ignoring the ban.

The second story is about how the state has banned smoking at the state hospital. For some reason, a really large percentage of mentally ill people smoke. This has been an ongoing struggle at many state hospitals because lack of cigarettes can really agitate some of the patients.

Yet *another* study showing smoking bans reduce heart attacks

This is absolutely a broken record, and it's become a very, very consistent conclusion -- that smoking bans lead to a reduction in heart attack admissions in local hospitals among both smokers and non-smokers alike. Here is another extensive study making that point.

There have literally been more than 100 studies all reaching this same conclusion -- and it's something that drives the smokers' rights movement completely nuts. They continue to claim all these studies are bunk and based on "junk science."

Man receives smoker's lungs in lung transplant, dies of lung cancer

Here is an absolutely bizarre story. A soldier received a lung transplant from a smoker, then died a year later of lung cancer. Why the hell would they use the lungs of a smoker for a lung transplant? It's completely weird and nonsensical. This happened in the U.K., by the way, not the U.S.

Schwarzenegger vetoes e-cig ban in California

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have made e-cigs illegal in California. The FDA is currently reviewing e-cigs to see if they should be approved.

Apparently, e-cigs have been effectively banned in public places Montana by the state health department. I haven't heard if anyone is considering a challenge to that.

Kansas City smoking ban upheld by Supreme Court

Kansas City, Mo.'s, ban on smoking was upheld earlier this month by the Missouri Supreme Court. This case is dead. St. Louis is going to be voting soon on a very weak restaurant ban. That will be interesting because there's an extremely active anti-ban activist in St. Louis who I'm sure will go all-out to defeat this measure. St. Louis is one of the biggest cities in the country with no smoking ban whatsoever.

Syria bans smoking!

Syria of all places, recently adopted a smoking ban. I often wonder when countries such as Greece, Turkey or Syria pass smoking bans, if they are at all enforced.

Smoking ban in Jackson, Wyoming

Apparently, there is only one bar in all of Jackson that continues to allow smoking -- the Virginian (Last time I was in Jackson last summer, it was definitely more than one bar that had smoking.). The Virginian is fighting the county health department ban on smoking. This is actually kind of an interesting case, because I don't know if there have been other county health departments that have tried to do this. Usually it's a city council or county supervisors. This is a very long and detailed, and interesting article by the Jackson paper. They refer to the new ban in Montana in this story.

Anyway, Wyoming is the last state in the West that hasn't even banned smoking in restaurants (Idaho and Nevada have restaurant bans), but Wyoming has bans in Cheyenne and Laramie. The Jackson ban will probably be tied up in court for a few more weeks or months.

Pretty soon, Casper, Wyo. is going to be about the only place west of Texas that you can still smoke in a restaurant!

Musical about smoking bans

So, just for kicks, I've checked out Charlie B's, the Rhino and the Union Club in the last week. These were three places that were just forced to go smokefree.

In the Union Club, there were a couple of ugly drunks loudly and profanely complaining about the smoking ban (this is at 4:30 in the afternoon, so they started pounding them down pretty early.) Man, it was annoying. It wasn't so much what they were saying, it was the volume. One of them actually absent-mindedly lit a cigarette. Putting away your first cocktail at 11 in the morning will have that effect on you, I guess.

I liked Charlie B's (though there was an ugly drunk in there, too, in the middle of the afternoon). I found the Rhino a little unfriendly.

A musical just opened on Broadway about smoking bans ... it's called "The Last Smoker in America." Songs include "Hangin' Out in a Smoky Bar," "The Last Cigarette" and "The Last Smoker in America."

It isn't really just about smoking bans, but one of the plotlines involves a character trying to quit smoking because laws have made it impossible to smoke anywhere. Here is an interview with one of the playwrights.

E-cigs banned in Montana bars?

Here's an odd Montana story, suggesting that e-cigarettes have been banned in Montana bars and taverns.

One of the big marketing angles of e-cigs is that you can beat smoking bans with them, because they don't actually give off steam (Instead they give off nicotine-laced steam).

Well, according to attorneys with the Montana State Department of Health, e-cigs are not legal to smoke in bars under the state's newly expanded smoking ban ... they are considered the same as cigarettes. As far as I know, Montana could be the only state in the country to make such a ruling (I could be wrong about that. I simply haven't heard of another state doing this.).

Part of the reason the state made this decision is that the FDA, which now has control over nicotine and e-cigs are a nicotine delivery system, is currently reviewing whether or not to ban e-cigs altogether. E-cigs don't give off the same kind of toxins as cigarette smoke, but they give off toxins nonetheless. I expect the FDA will end up banning them.

Some bars in Montana actually bought a bunch of e-cigs so people could still get their nicotine fix, but then found out the hard way they couldn't do it.

"Light" cigarette case going to the U.S. Supreme Court

Several tobacco companies are appealing a U.S. Appeals Court decision regarding the marketing of "light" cigarettes to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The decision by the appeals court would effectively ban "low tar" or "light" cigarettes, but the down side of it is that it removed the monetary damages element. At one time, the Justice Department (Bill Clinton era) was asking for $289 billion in damages from tobacco companies because they lied about the lesser danger claims of low tar and light cigarettes.

So, in essence, this case comes down to whether or not there will ever be low tar or light cigarettes again.

Also (in this same article, how convenient, only one link needed), the province of Ontario has also filed a $50 *billion* lawsuit against big tobacco companies seeking compensation for medical costs within the province.

Smoking ban comes to Montana

Here is a local story on Montana's new expanded smoking ban. All bars and restaurants are covered now. Photo courtesy of the Missoulian.

This story has the predictable mix of people who are annoyed at the ban and people who are happy about it.

The most outrageous part of this story was a young couple who went outside to smoke at the Oxford, which is the sleaziest dive in all of Missoula and complained that because of the ban, they had to leave their 18-month old baby in the bar who was eating pancakes ...

.... WHAT???....

Was someone watching the toddler in the Oxford ... the sleaziest bar in all of Missoula?

They'd rather go out and smoke rather than wait for their baby to finish her pancakes...?

Then the mother of the baby said the smoking ban is "disrespecting" her baby....

OMG!!! That has to be the most insane thing I've ever heard about any smoking ban. How much you want to bet those rockheads smoke around that poor kid?

Anyway, this ban was a long time coming. Montana had one of the oddest smoking bans in the country. It took effect immediately in restaurants in 2005, but then was delayed four years in bars and taverns.

Missoula Indy story on smoking ban

The alternative weekly in Missoula, the Missoula Independent did a big, multi-part story this week on the smoking ban that's finally kicking into comprehensive stage beginning Oct. 1.

The story quotes a number of smokers whining about the law and a number of bar owners afraid they're going to get hit. Kind of standard fare for these sorts of stories. One of the bars they did their interview at was the Golden Rose, which is a real dive out on West Broadway. Pretty much anything out on West Broadway is by nature bad news.

However, the article does hit on one major point I have wondered about.

I have no doubt the smoking ban will be generally well enforced in cities like Missoula, Billings and Bozeman, but what about the small towns where there aren't a lot of health inspectors. Are the bars in places like Milltown, Frenchtown, Arlee, Evaro etc., really going to comply. I suspect there will be a lot of defiance.

I can't wait for Oct. 1. It will be the first time I ever step foot in the Rhino and Charlie B's.
I still won't set foot in the Oxford, however. I don't care if it's smokefree. :)

Another heart attack study

Yup, this one got national attention and I'm sure the smokers' rights crowd had their usual head-exploding reaction. A collection of studies worldwide shows that where smoking bans are implementing, heart attacks drop 17 percent for smokers and non-smokers combined.

"Lies, all lies."

Yeah, uh, huh. This is about the 100th study now that reaches the same conclusion. The evidence is overwhelming. Smoking bans save lives of non-smokers.

Candy cigarettes officially banned

The FDA officially banned candy-flavoured cigarettes this week, in its first action since being given regulatory authority over cigarettes. Unfortunately, this ruling does not apply to menthol cigarettes because menthols represent a pretty big chunk of the cigarette market. But, no more peach or raspberry or strawberry flavoured cigarettes to attract teenagers.

Nevada smoking ban upheld as constitutional

The Nevada Supreme Court today ruled that the Nevada smoking ban IS constitutional, probably (who knows?) ending the legal challenges to it. However, the court did not uphold criminal sanctions within the law as being too vague.

I'm sure this isn't the end of the smoking ban fight in Nevada. The casinos are very powerful and they came close to watering down the state smoking ban through the State Legislature last year. I expect they will be back at it this year.

Patrick Swayze dies

After a year-long battle with pancreatic cancer, Patrick Swayze finally succumbed yesterday at the age of 57.

Swayze was a heavy smoker (and I'm NOT saying he deserved his cancer) -- about 3 packs a day -- and he gave an interview about a year ago in which he blamed his smoking for his cancer ... and he urged people to quit.

Like my dad, Swayze smoked right to the end. Some people gave him grief over it, but I don't. He said to Barbara Walters that if he believed it would make a difference in his prognosis, he would quit in a heartbeat, but pancreatic cancer is one of the worst and hardest to cure.

Swayze also seemed to be getting better, but I kind of new better, based on what I've seen from my dad. You can appear to be in remission, but it's a long, long battle and remission is a long way from cure.

It was a sad death. He was still a very young man. He wasn't the greatest actor in the world, and never seemed to be quite as big of a star as it appeared he was going to be. I think my favourite Patrick Swayze movie was "Roadhouse," because it is literally so gawdawful that it's actually quite funny. It has the absolute worst dialogue and script I have ever seen.

Anyway, here's to Patrick, who seemed to be a very brave and honest person who died too young.

Cool photos from Hubble

Look at these amazing photos from the newly refurbished Hubble space telescope. Aren't these amazing? If you want to see more, go to hubblesite.org

Obama gets to hold the Stanley Cup!

The Pittsburgh Penguins visited the White House yesterday.
I'm so jealous!

Comprehensive smoking ban nears for Montana

Why is this cat having cigarettes?
Montana will go completely, totally, utterly smokefree on Oct. 1, a mere 25 days away. Here is a story in a local paper about it.
Actually, it won't make that dramatic of a difference in Missoula, because there's only a handful of places that still have indoor smoking. The current smoking ban doesn't allow smoking in any restaurants or bars that serve food. The three or four free-standing bars in town I've gone into have voluntarily banned smoking indoors. Still, after Oct. 1, I do plan to check out a couple of the still-smoking places to see if they've genuinely gotten rid of the smoking. At least one of the places has vowed to defy the ban, I've heard. I'm not above making a phone call to the county health department if I see places trying to flout the ban.

Fairview Mountain

After turning back on Mount Rundle the day before and getting doused by torrential rain for three hours, I was hoping for a better end to my day on Fairview Mountain. This is a 9,000-foot high mountain (2,745 metres in Canada. Multiply metres by 3.28 and you get a pretty accurate number in American feet.) That's the mountain on the left from Lake Louise. That's Lake Louise on the right from the top of the mountain!

This is a 3,360-foot climb. It’s very, very short, probably only about four miles, which means it’s really steep. I figure about 840 feet per mile, which makes for a grade of 16 percent (Anything over 10 percent is steep.)

The trailhead begins right at Lake Louise. It’s kind of a maze of trails, but you just have to keep your eye peeled for a trail to Saddleback. That’s a big pass that leads to Sheol Valley. At the top of the pass is a scramble up to the summit of Fairview Mountain. It’s a nice, steady climb to the top of the pass, though I took a side trail that ended up petering out in some rocks. I thought it was the way to the summit, but it was just some pointless goat trail.

I found my way back to the main trail, and immediately came upon the junction to the mountain. (These two photos here. Check out the Clark's Nutcracker on the left.) Ah, those friendly Canadians actually put a sign there. You’ve climbed to 2,330 metres, which means you only have 415 metres to the summit. That doesn’t sound like much, but that’s about 1,360 feet.

I’m guessing the route to the top is about a mile. That would average out to a grade of 26 percent, which sounds right to me.

The route up Fairview starts out easy, but quickly gets incredibly steep. Ugh. It was more loose scree. Really terrible footing.

It turns out my attempt on Rundle the day before really, genuinely helped me up Fairview, because I was able to tell myself, “Well, this is easier than Mount Rundle,” which is was. I slipped on the scree a couple of times going up, but it never spooked me as much as Rundle, because that mountain had been *far* spookier. I realized based on what I was fighting up Fairview, I was probably on a 30-plus degree slope on Rundle. If not for that Rundle attempt the day before, I honestly don’t know if I could’ve talked myself up Fairview.

It took me a little over an hour to make that final mile up the mountain. Fairview has two or three frustrating false summits. A couple of times, I thought I was reaching the top, then discovered the top was still far off behind a little ridge.

I made the top in only 2 hours, 45 minutes total. What a steep, short trail it had been.

The top of Fairview gives you an amazing view of the big peaks of the Canadian Rockies and Bow Valley. (Bow Valley is on the right in the photo above) A big cloud sat on top of Mount Victoria and it didn’t move the whole time I was up there, but all the other mountains were free of the clouds, including, thankfully, Fairview. I was able to spend a good hour up there because it had been such a short hike. There was a German couple up at the top, and down below, I saw several people slogging their way up that scree. I decided it was time to go down.

I didn’t have any close calls on the way down, but I was a little paranoid of kicking rocks on the people climbing up. Again, I leaned heavily on both trekking poles. The German couple passed me. I have no shame of that. I don’t do downhills well! The downhill part took almost the same amount of time as the uphill.

I got back to Lake Louise by midafternoon, which gave me lots of time to get back to Banff, get my hotel room, unpack my soaked camping equipment and clean up and check out the town, which I had largely ignored for two days. After two days of camp food, I had chicken fajitas that night.

I found the town of Banff really, really kitschy. Just a lot of cheesy tourist shops. A lot of Chinese and European tourists. It reminded me a lot of Jackson, Wyo. I really prefer Jasper, which seems to be more of a genuine town.

Going one-for-two in Banff

Mount Rundle

Wow. What a beast.

I’m not sure I could ever climb Mount Rundle. It’s hard. It takes a lot of piss and vinegar and really, really, really strong legs. I lost confidence in my legs at about 8,500 feet, about 1,175 feet below the summit, after slogging through miles of an insanely steep scramble route and insanely steep loose scree. You can click on this first photo to get a pretty good idea of the route, and where I turned around.

I wanted to climb a couple of mountains in Banff and settled on Fairview Mountain overlooking Lake Louise pretty quickly. I couldn’t decide a second mountain. I thought about Sulphur Mountain, but there is a gondola to the top and that takes out some of the fun for me if there’s a bunch of people at the top who just rode a gondola. I decided to push myself and try and really hard mountain called Mount Rundle. It absolutely dominates the Banff skyline. I went in not really sure if I could actually climb it, but I wanted to give it a shot. It’s a 5,200-foot climb and the route to the top is only about 5 miles (though it sure seemed longer to me!), so I knew it had to be incredibly steep. But, I also went into it with an attitude that if I didn’t make it, I knew I had Fairview the following day.

I made terrible time getting through Montana to the border, getting slowed down by construction and slow rigs. Then, in Whitefish, I realized I forgot to bring a camera, so I had to stop at two drug stores until I found a store that sold cheapie disposable cameras. (So these aren't the best photos in the world.)

After dealing with the polite Canadian customs people, I made excellent time to Banff. Canadians just ignore the speed limits! And I can see why. I didn’t see one single, solitary RCMP patrol car between the U.S. border and Banff. They don’t patrol their highways hardly at all apparently.

So, after dealing with a very polite information officer at the park office and getting a helpful map of the mountain and a weather forecast (Eek, possible thunderstorms!), then dealing with a polite park ranger at the campground, I got my camp set up. There were some really high maintenance campers next to me who caused all sorts of problems the whole week. They left their ice chest out and took off. The nice and friendly Canadian park ranger wasn’t so friendly when he saw that ice chest sitting out. He wrote the people a ticket and confiscated it.

Anyway, I got up before dawn and found the trailhead. You have to cross a little one-lane wooden bridge right on the outskirts of Banff, then park at an unmarked parking lot, then cross a golf course fairway. The trailhead is one the other side of the fairway. It was the oddest trailhead I’ve ever seen. (Photo No. 2)

There is a trail for the first four miles. It climbs gradually up the side of Mount Rundle, begins doing some switchbacks, then hits a huge gully. This is called the Central Gully. It’s an important feature of Rundle. Apparently at least three people have died trying to summit Rundle by going up this gully.

The trail more or less ends here. There’s a big sign on the other side of the gully that shows you the way to the summit. After scrambling through the gully, I gulped when I saw the route through the woods.

It is unbelievably steep. It literally climbs up 40 degrees plus through the trees. I felt like I was climbing a cliff. I almost gave up there when I saw the route, which is marked by little reflective strips nailed into a tree every hundred feet or so.

I slogged up this “trail.” (Not really a trail. Not sure what to call it. A route, I guess.) It actually gets *slightly* less steep after about half a mile, now only about a 20 to 30 degree climb. The footing is OK. It’s just an incredible amount of work.

Finally after about an hour or 90 minutes of slogging up this back-breaking route through the trees, you hit the treeline. And whatever passes as a “trail” vanishes. Now, you’re on loose scree. Really, really loose and spooky. A number of cairns show you the way. (Photo No. 3 is looking toward Banff and gathering thunderheads from the ridge above the treeline.)

I fought and fought through this loose scree for another hour or so, finally slogging my way up to a formation called the Dragon’s Back. I knocked a *huge* rock loose at one point, and it bounced all the way down into the trees, a good 1,000 feet below me. Thankfully, no one else was on the mountain yet.

There were some thunderheads beginning to build off in the distance to the west. I actually hit a big boulder on the Dragon’s Back that allowed a flat spot to sit. I had climbed over 4,000 feet, but it had taken me four hours to get to this spot (Photo No. 4, it doesn't really do justice to the steepness of the Dragon's Back), and I had to make an honest decision. There were thunderheads to the west and I was dead exhausted. All that loose scree and gravel below me was going to be a lot harder going down than it had been coming up. I checked my GPS and saw that I was still 1,175 feet from the top … and it looked like an awfully long way up still. (Photo No. 5. The Dragon's Back is on the left and the actual summit is that peak to the right.)

Another climber came up and told me that the footing gets worse further up and it was too spooky for him. He just liked to climb up onto the Dragon’s Back. That was all I needed to hear. I didn’t have enough gas left in my tank, and I didn’t trust I would have the energy to get back down all that scree.

I headed back down. It was an easy decision. The people who get in trouble on mountains are often those who don’t respect their own limits. I had gone over 4,000 feet, and I had another mountain to climb the following day, so I was happy with that.

It was very, very slow going down the scree. I leaned heavily on both trekking poles the whole way. I slipped once and tore up my pants on the sharp scree, but that was it. Once I got down into the trees, I passed several young people going to the top. Several of them seemed to be Irish. I wonder how many of them made it. Man, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I finally got to the Central Gully and the trail on the other side. It took me forever. From that point on it was just hiking instead of scrambling down a cliff.

The storms held off all the way down. In fact, by the time I got back to the campground, it was actually sunny. But, then about two hours later, all hell broke loose. Wild thunder and lightning, then a torrential downpour for three hours. All my gear got completely soaked. The high maintenance people next to me got into a big fight with some other campers who insisted they had borrowed an air pump and didn’t return it.

I ran out of food on Lincoln Peak!

This was some little trail I saw on a map somewhere to a fairly obscure mountain in Glacier called Lincoln Peak. (Photo No. 1, taken from Sperry Chalet.) You can hardly see it unless you hike up to Sperry Chalet.

This is a 4,150-foot-climb! It doesn’t seem that bad, but I checked the numbers. It’s also about a 16-mile hike. Still, compared to Siyeh/Piegan passes it went pretty easily, except that I ran out of food!

The trail to Sperry Chalet, which eventually connects to the Gunsight Pass trail, goes pretty steeply uphill along Sprague Creek through thick forest. You occasionally get a nice view of Lake McDonald through the trees over your right shoulder.

After plodding along the woods for about two-and-a-half hours, you finally get your glimpse of Sperry Chalet. My heart sank. It looked really, really far above me. It looked like it would take over an hour to get there.

It probably was still pretty high up, but it didn’t take as long as I feared. I got there in about 40 minutes. It’s a huge chalet – actually two buildings, the chalet itself and a little café next door.

Near the chalet, I came upon a small family of mountain goats. I saw mountain goats the whole way up to (and down from) Lincoln Pass.

Lincoln Pass is less than a mile past Sperry Chalet. Along the way, I came upon a stubborn mountain goat lying on the trail who refused to budge. (Photo No. 2) The goat and its baby were lying right below a hairpin switchback, so after yelling at him for a couple of minutes to move, I finally had to whip out both trekking poles and cut up the side of the mountain to the trail up above, cussing at the stupid mountain goat the whole way. This was actually a little dangerous, but my only other option was to throw a rock at the mountain goat and I wasn’t going to do that.

Lincoln Pass takes you into some genuine Glacier high country. There’s a big, long stretch after the pass where you are well above the tree line (though I didn’t go that way).

Right at the top of the pass is a faint, primitive trail to Lincoln Peak, a double-summit little cone that summits a measly 400 feet above the trail. 400 feet sounds easy, but this little half-mile scramble isn’t that easy, especially coming downhill. Here is the way up the scree from Lincoln Pass. (Photo No. 3) The actual peak is hiding. It's that little knob of rock to the left.

The ahem “trail” goes straight up the boulders and loose scree of the first peak, flattens out a bit on a small saddle, then really, *really* goes uphill on the upper peak. It wasn’t that hard going up, but the whole way, I was absolutely utterly *dreading* the downhill. I’m not as confident going downhill as I am uphill.

Again, you get an amazing view at the top. You can see Lake McDonald way off the northwest, while Sperry Chalet sits *waayyyy* below you, and Gunsight and Walton mountains loom around you. That is Lake Ellen Wilson on the right (Photo No. 4) and Lake McDonald on the left (Photo No. 5).

A funny thing happened on this hike. I was sure I had brought enough food, but I was really, really hungry for some reason and ate it all up at the top of Lincoln Peak. I knew Sperry Chalet had a little café. I was really hoping it was open. I decided I better get this downhill over with. If you click on Photo No. 6, you can see Sperry Chalet from the top of Lincoln Peak.

It took me a measly 22 minutes to go the half-mile from Lincoln Pass to the top of Lincoln Peak. It took me *35 minutes* to go down it (I told you I’m not a good downhiller.). I leaned heavily on both trekking poles and took it slow and easy. I never once slipped, but the scree was really loose and steep. I hate that stuff. Why do I even do this?

I came upon another mountain goat family on the way down, then stopped at the chalet. Yes! There were open. I got a delicious ham and cheese grilled sandwich and lemonade. It tasted great! I felt I had the rocket fuel now to get back to Lake McDonald Lodge.

I was attacked by a swarm of black flies!

Haystack Butte

I figured Haystack Butte would be the easiest of the three hikes I had planned for Glacier.

It would’ve been, if not for a really negative experience I had with the wildlife on Haystack.

I’d always been tempted to climb Haystack, but I didn’t know the way. There is no trail to the summit. It’s pure route-finding. I finally researched it and found a route up to the top. It’s not necessarily obvious to the naked eye how to do it once you get up there. I traced the correct route up the mountain (click on first photo)

Haystack Butte is supposed to be the easiest scramble in all of Glacier. You only climb about 1,200 feet from Logan Pass and it’s only about an 8- or 9-mile roundtrip. A piece of cake compared to that monster Siyeh/Piegan trip the day before.

It’s about a three-mile hike from Logan Pass via the Highline Trail to the Haystack Butte saddle. You only climb a couple of hundred feet to the saddle. Most of your real work is ahead of you. (The Highline Trail from the summit of Haystack, Second photo.)

There were large crowds on the Highline Trail. I was a little discouraged that I might run into a bunch of people on top of Haystack. Nothing I could really do about it.

My route up the mountain went swimmingly at first. You have to make a traverse diagonally up a slope, finding a couple of broad cuts in a cliff to get on top of a ledge that sits directly below an even bigger cliff. Getting around that second cliff is the real problem-solving issue. This cliff is tall, at least a couple of hundred feet high.

The way you’re supposed to go is to follow the base of the cliff almost due west until it ends at a 40-degree ridge that slopes northward. It’s almost like two different mountains glued together.

Here’s where I made a mistake. I got the edge of the cliff, then well down below it, I saw a nice flat-looking grassy plain and headed for it, eschewing a couple of steeper slots to the north through the cliff rocks. Mistake.

That grassy plain looks flat, but it’s a trap. After about a 100 feet or so, the flat area ends and you’re stuck with an incredibly steep grassy slope above you. I mean really, really steep. It had to be well over 45 degrees. I grunted my way up that slope with two trekking poles (Seriously, don’t even *think* about trying this without trekking poles), until I worked my way to a slightly more sane slope, probably around 30 to 40 degrees. I looked down … and I couldn’t even *see* where I had been standing 20 minutes earlier. It was that steep.

From this spot, it’s pretty easy to the top. It’s steep, but the footing couldn’t have been better. It’s actually a grass-covered slope that’s been terraced by snowmelt channels, so it really isn’t that hard to get up it with trekking poles. The big fear I had was on the way down, I would find myself back on that 45-degree-plus slope and that would be utterly nerve-wracking downhill. I vowed to avoid that area on the way down and try to head back taking a route slightly over to the east.

About halfway up Haystack, I had a horrible run-in with these little biting black flies. Really voracious little @#$%ers. They KEPT GOING FOR MY EYES. They crawled under my sunglasses and bit away around my eyes. And I really couldn’t do much about it. I had bug juice in my pack, but I couldn’t get to it; I couldn’t take my pack off and I dare not drop my poles, or they would’ve gone rolling down the slope.

When I got to the top, I got out the bug juice and it kept the flies away on the way down. I saw I had several bites on my arms.

The view from the top of Haystack is magnificent, from Heaven’s Peak to Mount Oberlin even to way up to the north and Swiftcurrent Peak. (The third photo is Mount Oberlin and the fourth photo is Heaven's Peak.)

Amazingly, for an apparent “easy” mountain, none of those hundreds of people on the Highline Trail bothered to go for the Haystack summit. I was the only one up there for an hour.

I found a perfect route down the steep slope on the way back. As I thought, cutting a little to the east and making through some rocks that make up the end of the big cliff face is much easier than the way I had come up. (Here I am on the high shelf of Haystack looking back toward the Garden Wall. Photo No. 5) However, I wasn’t done screwing up. I headed straight toward the Highline Trail, thinking I was walking to the Haystack saddle. I wasn’t. It turns out I was headed for a hairpin on the trail several hundred yards from the saddle. I finally reached the top of a cliff and realized that I shouldn’t be where I was. It was actually kind of a dangerous spot. I had taken a totally wrong route down. I was impatient and had made too much of a beeline toward the trail that was a lot further below me than it looked. You have to be a lot more patient and walk along the cliff face back to the saddle much longer than I remembered on the way up.

I actually had to go back uphill a bit and found a much safer route back to the saddle. I probably added a good 15 to 20 minutes of extra work on the way back.

On the way back, there were a bunch of bighorn sheep along the trail. This time, the sheep actually had horns. At one point, we heard a loud sound a lot like an old-fashioned car horn. The horn sounded several times and everyone on the trail stopped, trying to figure out what it was. It turns out it was one of the bighorns bugling. Here's a pretty good shot of one of the bighorns near the Haystack saddle. Photo No. 6.

When I got back to the hotel and took off my sunglasses, I was shocked at the damage. I was covered in welts around my eyes. Like a little kid, I counted them, finding 14 huge, angry red welts on my face. I never had even seen black fly welts before. These were huge. Bigger than mosquito bite welts.

My Glacier Trip -- Part 1, Siyeh/Piegan passes

Siyeh/Piegan Pass

I had three things – well, four things, well – among the many things on my agenda for Glacier National Park – was a hike over Siyeh/Piegan passes, a climb up Haystack Butte and a climb up a fairly obscure mountain near the Sperry Chalet called Lincoln Peak.

I went three-for-three. 45 miles and nearly 10,000 vertical feet gained in three days.

Siyeh/Piegan pass is a brutal hike. Really vicious. It was 18 miles long, but that only tells part of the story. This hike has some serious up-and-down to it.

I decided it would be fun to take public transit from Many Glacier Hotel to Sunrift Gorge, climb two passes (Siyeh and Piegan), then head downhill right back to the Many Glacier parking lot via the Grinnel Glacier trail. I caught two buses from Many Glacier Hotel to Sunrift Gorge, which is about halfway up Going-to-the-Sun Road on the east side of Logan Pass. The sun was blazing and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I groaned inwardly a little when they announced the weather forecast over the bus PA that there were high winds over Siyeh, Piegan and Swiftcurrent passes. Great, two out of the three passes I was headed for. Taking two buses, I still managed to get the trailhead at 8:45 a.m.

From Sunrift Gorge to the top of Siyeh Pass, it’s only 5.6 miles, but you have to climb more than 3,400 feet to the top elevtion of 8,073 feet, so you’re averaging about 600 feet a mile – an 11 percent grade, which makes for a slow slog – at least for me.

The trail switches back and forth across the east ridge of a big, wide, beautiful valley carved out by Boring Creek. You reach the beginning of the valley, over a thousand feet above the creek, and the top of the pass looks tantalizingly close.

Looks are deceiving. It takes *forever* to get over this pass. The trail switches back and forth many times up a broad cirquelike formation. The creek below kept getting tinier and tinier, but the top of the pass didn’t look like it was getting any closer.

Finally, after three-plus hours of hiking (Yuck, I was averaging almost 40 minutes a mile. Even for me, that’s slow.), I hit the top of the pass. The wind wasn’t too bad, and the temperature was still pleasant.

Boy, on the back side of Siyeh, did I ever hit some wind, however. Really howling, vicious gusts. Seriously, I think some of the gusts had to be topping 60 miles an hour. On this side of the pass, the trail drops very steeply down into this beautiful high-altitude meadow called Preston Park. A couple of times, I just had to stop and plant my trekking poles when I got pounded by wind. Fortunately, it wasn’t a cold wind. I had brought a heavy coat, but I never had to unpack it.

I passed several hikers going up the back side. Apparently, it’s a very popular hike to go from Siyeh Bend to Preston Park, up Siyeh Pass, then drop down at Sunrift Gorge to catch a bus. That’s only about 10 miles. A lot easier than what I was doing.

The wind died in Preston Park and the trail up to nearby Piegan Pass is pretty easy. You hike through this pretty little meadow for about an hour. I don’t have an exact number, but I’m guessing it climbs less than 1,000 feet to Piegan Pass, which sits at 7,570 feet, not quite the brute as Siyeh. Still, after climbing Piegan, I had now climbed a total of 4,000 vertical feet on the day.

The wind stayed calm all the way up to Piegan, with a great view of Preston Park and Siyeh Bend the whole way, but then kicked up again at the top. I got blasted a second time by 50- to 60-mile-an-hour gusts (Not sure why the wind was only on the back side of the two passes. The front sides of both passes were generally breeze-free.)

I got an amazing view from the top of Piegan Pass of a spectacular lenticular cloud over the eastern front of the Rockies. It stayed there for a two solid hours. It reminded me of the lenticulars I used to see at Mount Shasta and the Eastern Sierra.

This was another hard, long slog downhill. The trail dives steep down for about three miles and is really hard on the feet and knees. You pass a huge, wide waterfall called Morning Eagle Falls. It takes forever, but you finally reach the valley of the floor. It was midafternoon now and really hot. I still had another 4.1 miles to go.

I made the 4.1 miles in less than 100 minutes (what a difference a flat trail makes), getting back to Many Glacier right at 5 p.m. I finished the longest hike I’ve down since my Mammoth days in the early 90s (longer even than the epic Half Dome climb I did last year.) It took me 8 hours, 15 minutes to hike 18 miles, with a meal break included.

Kiddie cigarette lighter

Oh, man, look at this cigarette lighter. I don't know where this is. I found the image on failblog.org