Climbing Heavy Runner Mountain

Heavy Runner Mountain in the Logan Pass area of Glacier National Park juts out like an old locomotive train. Accessing this summit from the Logan Pass area involves wrapping around Reynolds Mountain and riding the ridge to the top. We had a perfect August day to enjoy this wonderful summit with epic views and wonderful wildlife.

We arrived at the parking lot around 6:30am and it was almost already full. After getting all of our stuff together, we hopped on to the boardwalk trail towards Hidden Lake in the crisp, morning air. The sun just began to crest the summits to the east, first kissing Reynolds Mountain and Clements Mountain, then exploding light all over the Logan Pass area.

As we reached Hidden Pass, we took the designated climber’s trail for Reynolds Mountain (one of only a couple in the area where you can get “off trail”). Reynolds summit was shrouded in clouds as the morning breeze blew moisture rich warmer air to it’s chilly summit.

We skirted below the ridge connecting Clements Mountain to Reynolds Mountain, then climbed up onto it and greeted by the strong wind. We tried our best to get out of the wind to enjoy the new glimpse of Bearhat Mountain with Hidden Lake below. The desire to continue and get out of the wind pressed us forward.

Skirting the west face of Reynolds, we climbed up to the pass between it and Dragons Tail, welcoming the sun and views looking south. The trail remained fairly well established as we worked our way along the south face, but petered out as we came to the east side of the mountain with first views of Heavy Runner (from this angle anyway).

We navigated above the cliff band (using beta from Blake Passmore’s “Climb Glacier National Park Vol 1”), then dropped down into the basin where recommended and following a few cairns. Some of the vegetation was quite wet and squishy from the melting snowfields above.

Once in the basin, it was easy to figure out getting to the next saddle. Along the way we had an immature Golden Eagle soaring above us and a huge Bighorn Sheep ram walking towards us. Views continued to change as we made our way to the saddle and it’s always a delight to be able to look at the Logan Pass area from different vantages… and up high!

From the saddle, we picked our way up along the ridge coming across a little arch and a Rock Wren that chattered at us in the mechanical way that they do. After navigating our way up past the bony ridge, we came to the last approach to the summit. Well, not the technical summit.

The technical summit is a climbing affair where a rope is recommended and is only a couple feet higher than the sensible summit. We went to the sensible summit, took some photos, then dropped down out of the wind and ate lunch while the warm sun smiled down on us. We watched some Golden Eagles flying around the ridge to the south.

On the way back, we spied a sow Grizzly with two cubs, but they were in some sort of big hurry, so we were unable to get any pictures of them, but it’s always fun to see them! We also spied a nanny and kid Mountain Goat when we came to the saddle between Dragons Tail and Reynolds.

Overall, it was a wonderful day climbing around in the mountains full of views, summit highs, and wildlife.