Swan Peak July 11, 2020
On a bluebird morning a combined group of Rocky Mountaineers and Glacier Mountaineering
Society climbers started up the gated grassy road which leads to the Squeezer Creek trail.
Squeezer Creek is pretty much THE way to climb Swan Peak thanks to Jim Valentine and Paul
Gereg. Jim blazed the trail years ago and both Jim and Paul now maintain it. This road is totally
bike-able but we opted to hike it. After hitting the trail we made good time up to lower and then
upper Squeezer lakes. After taking a break at upper, we donned our helmets and started toward
what for me was the crux of the climb – getting up a miserable scree and loose rock strewn
slope to the ridgeline which leads directly to the summit of Swan. We opted to spread out and
while some rocks went a tumbling as I knew they would, thankfully there were no close calls.
After that it was just a relatively short but very fun climb to the summit. After taking in the views
for a bit we headed down and immediately ran into Brenda Winkler and Bruce Lieffering as they
neared the summit, two GMSers who opted to climb Swan the same day but just not go with the
group. We said happy hello-goodbyes and they went up and we continued down. Thankfully
the rockfall getting down the scree slope was actually better than on the way up, probably
because we all knew what to expect. After that it was a toasty but quick hike out to cold beers.
It was a beautiful and fun day in the Swan mountains. Gaia GPS said RT mileage was ~16 and
total elevation gain was ~5600 ft. In attendance were: Jason Blyth, Dori Giles, Casey Lammers,
Josh Lewis, Bryan Kercher, Minot Maser, Laurel Vielle (leader).
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