Spanish Peaks, Lee Metcalf Wilderness

 Beehive Peak, Lee Metcalf Wilderness

“To those who have struggled with them, the mountains reveal beauties that they will not disclose to those who make no effort. That is the reward the mountains give to effort. And it is because they have so much to give and give it so lavishly to those who will wrestle with them that men love the mountains and go back to them again and again.  The mountains reserve their choice gifts for those who stand upon their summits.” - Sir Francis Younghusband 

Beehive Basin

Amy McCarthy, East Ridge of Beehive Peak

"We need wilderness because we are wild animals... If only for the sport of it. For the terror, freedom, and delirium. Because we need brutality and raw adventure, because men and women first learned to love in, under, and all around trees, because we need for every pair of feet and legs about ten leagues of naked nature, crags to leap from, mountains to measure by, deserts to finally die in when the heart fails." - Edward Abbey

Looking South from the Summit of Beehive Peak

Traversing from Beehive Basin to Summit Lake

“What avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?” - Aldo Leopold

Fryxell lounging on his Ruffwear Highlands Bed

Amy and Fryxell relaxing in an HMG UltaMid  

“Over these seemingly changeless mountains, in endless succession, move the ephemeral colors of dawn and sunset and of noon and night, the shadows and sunlight, the garlands of clouds with which storms adorn the peaks, the misty rain-curtains of afternoon showers” - Fritiof Fryxell

Gallatin Peak, Lee Metcalf Wilderness

 Camping at Summit Lake

“I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.” - Louis Armstrong

Amy and Fryxell Planning our Route

Amy contours around the North Fork of Hellroaring Creek

“It appeared that we were to carry everything on our backs and just push off by ourselves into the mountains with nothing to govern our movements except a map and compass and our own fancy. It was going to be the most wonderful thing that had ever happened.” – Eric Shipton

Fryxell the Summit Hound

 Amy McCarthy, West Ridge of Gallatin Peak

"Any one who has stood upon a lofty summit and gazed over an inchoate tangle of deep canyons and cragged mountains, of sunlit lakelets and black expanses of forest, has become aware of a certain giddy sensation that there are no distances, no measures, simply unrelated matter rising and falling without any analogy to the banal geometry of breadth, thickness, and height." – Bob Marshall

Amy McCarthy, Madison Range

Amy on the Summit Ridge sporting a Wizbang hat, Gallatin Peak 

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul." - John Muir

The Summit

Oreamnos americanus or Rocky Mountain Goat 

“The high altitudes are a special world. Born of the Pleistocene, at home among pulsating glaciers and wind-flayed rocks, the animals have survived and thrived, the harshness of the environment breeding a strength and resilience which the lowland animals often lack. At these heights, in this remote universe of stone and sky, the fauna and flora of the Pleistocene have endured while many species of lower realms have vanished in the uproar of the elements. Just as we become aware of this hidden splendor of the past, we are in danger of denying it to the future. As we reach for the stars we neglect the flowers at our feet.” – George Schaller

Spanish Peaks, Lee Metcalf Wilderness

Amy viewing the Chilled Lakes, North Fork of Hellroaring Creek

Summit Lake 

"A mountain is the best medicine for a troubled mind. Seldom does man ponder his own insignificance. He thinks he is master of all things. He thinks the world is his without bonds. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Only when he tramps the mountains alone, communing with nature, observing other insignificant creatures about him, to come and go as he will, does he awaken to his own short-lived presence on earth." - Finis Mitchell

Amy, Fryxell and Silky Phacelia

 Bear Basin

HMG Windrider Pack

"It is not technology or materialism that is the problem. The love of materials and the physical world and the extraordinary craftsmanship in its use have made us human." - Paul Shepard

Ruffwear Approach Pack

Amy McCarthy, Spanish Peaks

“For those who are willing to exert themselves for this experience, there is a great gift to be won . . . a gift to be had nowadays in very few remaining parts of our plundered planet – the gift of personal satisfaction, the personal well-being purchased by striving . . .” - Margaret Murie

 Lee Metcalf Wilderness

North Fork of the West Fork of the Gallatin River 

"You don't need to die to get to heaven, you just need good hiking boots" - Shelton Johnson

 Bear Basin Pack Trail

 Lone Mountain and a Mountain Mansion, Beehive Basin Road

"Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance." - Theodore Roosevelt

Spanish Peaks Unit of the Lee Metcalf Wilderness

“Certainly a wilderness area, a little portion of our planet left alone…will furnish us with a number of very important uses…If we are wise, we will cherish what we have left of such places in our land.” - Olaus Murie

Forrest and Amy McCarthy, Lee Metcalf Wilderness

In celebration of the 30^th anniversary of the Lee Metcalf Wilderness and as a follow-up to our recent climb of Hilgard Peak, Amy and I returned to the Madison Range. In 26 hours we traveled over 15 miles, climbed nearly 7,000 ft and summited Beehive and Gallatin Peaks.

— route
Spanish Peaks