He's not over the hill yet

Whitefish climber finds retirement a good time to bag the 'technical' peaks

By RICHARD HANNERS - Whitefish Pilot

More and more people who retire these days turn to adventure travel for a little excitement, but Whitefish mountaineer Vern Ingraham has taken that notion to new heights.

Ingraham, who worked at the National Guard Armory in Whitefish when he retired in 1992, has climbed more than 140 different peaks in Glacier National Park.

"So many of them I've done over and over again," he said.

By 1999, Ingraham had climbed all six of the Park's 10,000-footers — but not without incident. The first time he and his longtime climbing partner, Jim Egan, tackled Mount Cleveland, the Park's tallest peak, they were stopped short about 1,500 feet from the summit when a large rock rolled over Egan's foot and they had to turn back.

The two returned to Cleveland the next year with Roger Dokken and Marvin Parker. The four got separated, and Ingraham and Egan were back at camp the next morning when they saw a rescue helicopter fly in.

"It flew around for an hour and 15 minutes and lowered a person at one point," Ingraham said.

What the two didn't know was that Dokken had fallen from a three-foot wide ledge that winds two miles around Cleveland from Stoney Indian Pass. Dokken died in the fall.

Ingraham and Egan became renowned for their fast ascents.

"Jim and I didn't like to camp, so we usually tried to climb mountains in day trips," Ingraham said.

Their ascent of 10,100-foot Kintla Peak, up the North Fork near the Canada border, has become legendary — it wasn't just fast, it was by a new route. They bagged the summit in 21 hours round-trip from Whitefish.

"We spent 18 hours climbing and three hours driving," Ingraham said.

The idea for the climb was a joint effort. The two had a good look at the Akokala Creek drainage while atop Reuter Peak the weekend before, but the climb was tougher than they'd thought.

"We were about ready to give up until we finally reached the top of the ridge. Then Jim got summit fever," Ingraham said. "The return trip was some of the worst brushwhacking I've ever seen."

After the Glacier Mountaineering Society honored Ingraham and Egan in 1999 with an award for bagging the Park's six tallest peaks, they turned their sights on the "technical peaks."

The five so-called "technical peaks" got their name from Pat Caffrey's 1985 book "Climbers Guide to Montana" — Wilbur, in the Many Glacier area; Blackfoot and Walton, in the Lake Gunsight area; Split, reached from Cutbank Campground; and St. Nicholas, visible from U.S. Highway 2.

Ingraham and Egan had already climbed Wilbur in 1995 with Walt Bahr, his son Dick, Ivan O'Neil and Bobbie Gilmore. The climb was an Over The Hill Gang climb — named for a group that meets on Thursdays for climbs in the Park.

"I got a photo of O'Neil on the side of the Wilbur that he liked so much he had it hanging in his office and used it for Christmas cards," Ingraham said.

The group ascended the steep Class 4 "Chimney Route," but the group shared rock-climbing gear, which slowed them down.

"My pack fell off, and I thought I'd never see it again," Ingraham said. "When I got to the summit, I looked down and saw it on a ledge. The binoculars broke, but I still use the same pack."

In 2000, Ingraham and Egan climbed Blackfoot Mountain, 22 miles round-trip in one day. Large chunks of ice had fallen to the right of the 100-foot high ice cliffs dividing the upper and lower sections of the Blackfoot Glacier, affording them a route to the summit.

Split Mountain's rocky pinnacle was first climbed by Gordon Edwards and John Mauff in 1956. Ingraham and Egan climbed it in 2002.

"We scrambled right up," Ingraham said. "Don Scharfe was up there the weekend before and left a nice green sling for us to rappel down."

Ingraham started honing his rock skills at The Summit's climbing wall in 2006 in preparation for climbing 9,376-foot St. Nicholas — one of the Park's most difficult peaks.

St. Nicholas was first climbed by Reverend Conrad Wellen, of Havre, in 1926, but with 12 miles of trail, six miles of brushwhacking and 5,500 feet of climbing — including 1,000 feet of Class 4-5 rock near the top — there aren't too many names on the register.

Egan had moved to Las Vegas by 2006, so Ingraham, then 72, teamed up with Matt Schrowe, Frank Wesolovski and Wesolovski's 22-year-old son, Alex, for St. Nicholas.

Like Ingraham, Frank Wesolovski got into climbing after he retired in Helena, moved to Whitefish and joined the Over The Hill Gang and Glacier Mountaineering Society. It was his second year climbing, and he had just gotten his lymphoma under control. His son was a competitive sport climber and led the climb.

Wesolovski said they reached the summit by 12:30 p.m. on a "bluebird day." Seven rappels later, they were back at the notch where the technical climbing begins. Darkness, however, stopped them from reaching their cars — they camped about a mile from where they forded the Middle Fork of the Flathead River.

Two weeks later, Ingraham, Frank Wesolovski and Bill Haring climbed 8,926-foot Walton Mountain — the last of the "technical" peaks for Ingraham.

It wasn't Ingraham's first try at Walton. In an attempt to bag the peak in a day, Ingraham and Egan had come in from U.S. Highway 2 via Harrison Lake several times, but they were stymied each time by thick brush and cliffs.

This time, Ingraham agreed to take the standard route across the Jackson and Harrison glaciers. Everything went smoothly, Wesolovski said, other than the grizzly sow and two cubs hanging at their camp site below Jackson Glacier.

Ingraham, who was drafted in 1956 and made the Army a career, says he's finally feeling his age.

"I'm not like I used to be," he said. "I had 10 good years climbing with Jim."

Some people, however, might call that hyperbole — Ingraham still goes on weekly Over The Hill Gang outings, and last week he rode his bike with Over-The-Hiller Marvin Parker up to Red Meadow Pass, over the Whitefish Range, down to Polebridge for the night, then back to Whitefish via Columbia Falls.

"Parker said it was about five hours of biking," Ingraham said.