Honoring Mount Hooker – Part One

By: Outdoor Ambassador, Becky Switzer

It’s July, over four months into the pandemic. Plans have been waylaid to the nth degree. Nevermind international travel… simply heading across the country makes even the most veteran travelers think twice. As with many rock climbers, my plans were altered, and to be perfectly honest, plans for later this year are still in flux.

As with many places, living in Montana has its downfalls but also has some fairly significant perks. Public lands abound, and the ability for me to access large swaths of mountainous terrain is ridiculously simple. This is a dream for a climber, and as luck would have it, comes in fairly handy during times like these when the government tells you to operate far from other humans. “Easy!” says everyone who lives north of Denver and East of Seattle.

When selecting an objective for these pandemic times, my partner and I settled on one that would remain relatively failsafe with regards to travel restrictions. Aside from the obvious close proximity, Montana and Wyoming are essentially blood relatives when it comes to the topography of the land and mentality of the people. Get out there, quietly do your thing (do it well), respect the mountains. This could be the ethos of either state. Wyoming, however, boasts the stunning landscape of the Wind River Range. This range is a proverbial magnet for climbers, known for its large concentration of tall peaks and sheer granite rock faces.

While the concept of this objective excites me greatly, I’m also terrified. We have selected to go a moderate distance (moderate, for the Winds) into the range to face a mountain that holds some very proud climbs. Mount Hooker is a commanding peak that sits in the central part of the range at well over 11,000 feet of elevation. The formidable north face boasts some of the hardest big wall free climbs outside of Yosemite Valley. While the climbing in and of itself is not entirely out of my comfort zone, the entire package of a backcountry multi pitch-free climb that we will attempt in one very long day will push my limits.

The intended route is one of the originals on Mount Hooker, and first free climbed in 1990 by the legendary team of Paul Piana, Tim Toula, and the late Todd Skinner and Galen Rowell. The vast accomplishments of these men are not to be taken lightly, thus making it clear to me the kind of effort they must have put in to visualize and execute the creation of a route of this nature. Comically, this route is no longer the most difficult on the face. Fellow Mystery Ranch athlete Whit Magro has since established a couple of even more difficult lines on Hooker’s north face. The history with this piece of rock is certainly exceptional if not unparalleled in multi pitch-free climbing.

I’m also aware of the late Inge Perkins and Hayden Kennedy’s trip to Mount Hooker in the summer of 2016. She wrote about it in the post “Mt. Hooker-An Unforgettable Ascent”. While I know their trip was a smashing success, I’m not completely grasping the type of effort it would take mere mortals to accomplish the quantity of climbing they accomplished in the ten days they were in the backcountry.

With these nuggets of information creating my foundation of knowledge for the trip, I’m proceeding with great anticipation but a healthy amount of trepidation for the physical effort that lies ahead.

Stay tuned for part two!