Mt. Henkel & Crowfeet Mtn (Glacier NP)- August 28, 2026

Kercher Glacier Classic

Participants: Forest Dean,Elizabeth Smith, Francis Horton, Sean Colvin, Haley Eakin, Luke Jacobsen

The six of us started out from the newly redesigned Swiftcurrent Parking area at about 8:15am on this Friday morning of the Classic. Perfect weather, although a little breezy. We hiked roughly a half of a mile up the trail towards Iceberg/Ptarmigan Lakes, then headed straight up towards the huge gully draining the south side of Henkel. No bushwacking required. The climbing was fun for most of it- went through a couple of cliff bands and up a narrow drainage. The last several hundred feet was on the standard steep scree covered (downsloping) shelves that Glacier is famous for- not really hard, but mostly annoying. We topped out on Henkel after about 2.5 hours in a gale.

We next dropped about 900’ to the west, before regaining all that and more as we made our way north along the ridge and to the summit of Crowfeet. Some fun class 3 climbing was required on the last 50ish feet to the top.  Not quite as windy up there, so we relaxed and enjoyed our lunch before beginning the descent.

From Crowfeet we hiked north along the ridge another half mile, then dropped down towards Ptarmigan Lake. Master descensionist Sean led the way, alternating between scree skiing and carefully picking our way through cliff bands. We all reached the lake without mishap, and then several of us stripped down and took a well-earned cold plunge.

After drying out, we hit the trail and hiked the approx. 4 miles back to the trailhead.  Luke and Haley took a side detour and hiked an additional 4 miles round trip up to Iceberg Lake. The rest of us celebrated our day with parking lot beers.

The effort took us just under 8 hours, with a distance of about 10 miles. A fun day with a great group! Forest Dean