Local rock climbers care for Northwest Montana's crags

It was a splitter day at the crags. Thanks to the Northwest Montana Climbing Coalition, many of the manky trails at the Stone Hill climbing area along Lake Koocanusa are stonker now, and the old, sketchy bolts are gone — replaced with new, bomber hardware.

The coalition, aka Stewards of the Rock, works to keep the region’s climbing areas open, accessible and as safe as possible. Since their inception in 2018, they’ve built trails, replaced old bolts and top anchors, and hosted events with the robust, local climbing community.

“We have a really special climbing area that is Stone Hill. It's got high-quality quartzite, some of the best I've climbed,” said Jacob Frerk, president and a founding member of the coalition. “We want to protect it and make it more safe and accessible for future generations.”

From the start, the goal of the seven member board was to improve access with better trails and provide more safety with new hardware. The coalition now boasts 128 members.

“Right away we saw that there was a need for our stewardship in the valley with the climbing community growing,” Frerk said. “Our focus was to replace a lot of the old, janky bolts.”

The coalition replaces iffy, quarter-inch bolts, some of which Frerk says were installed in the 1990s, with more burly, half-inch stainless steel versions. All of the hardware is new, much of it has been donated and a lot of it is community-funded.

In addition to donating money, the climbing community donates time and sweat at the coalition’s trail days that happen a few times each summer.

“Our climbing community always comes out for trail days. Our community is as strong and as tough as the quartzite,” Frerk said of the climbers from the Flathead Valley as well as a few from Eureka who contribute their muscle. “People in this community want to help out.”

In 2019, the group applied for and received two $2,000 grants. One came from the Access Fund to be used specifically for bolt replacement work. The other grant, the Cornerstone Conservation Grant from the American Alpine Club, went toward trail improvements.

While many of the crags at Stone Hill are along Montana 37, some require a hike. The trails that lead to the Holdup Bluffs area above the main crag were mostly game trails — challenging, faint paths. Frerk described the old “trail” that was used to access the Peck Gulch area as a “rubble gully” that was “really kinda sketchy.”

With help from the community, Frerk said the coalition built “nicely approachable, walkable loop trails that connect crags.”

The group concentrates on working at Stone Hill because they have developed a good relationship with the Forest Service.

Dan Ward, trail manager for the Rexford and Fortine Ranger Districts, worked with the coalition to determine the best placement for trails in the area. To reach the Peck Gulch crags, they identified an area with access from the campground that would allow for a flat trail about a mile long to be built.

“It is now going to be a sanctioned Forest Service trail because we did such a good job on it and it leaves from a popular area,” Frerk beamed.

Although the coalition does not develop routes, some of its members do, and sometimes the trail building leads to route creation.

“When we put in the trail to Peck Gulch, we walked right underneath a 150-foot cliff that had no routes on it,” Frerk said. “There are now 10 routes on that wall.”

THE AMERICAN Safe Climbing Association is donating hardware to the coalition: bolts, hangers and mussy hooks. Mussy hooks are heavy duty stainless steel carabiners that make getting off a route safer and quicker. In keeping with climbing ethics, only the last climber should use the hooks to lower.

Since their first trail day in the summer of 2019, the group has improved seven areas at Stone Hill and have replaced bolts and added mussy hooks at the Point of Rocks climbing crag in Kila, too. The climbing community is at the root of all they do.

“At Stone Hill and Point of Rocks, the developers are developing the routes to share it with the community,” said Frerk. “Point of Rocks, it's a really good climbing area because of the dedication of the developers.

“Point of Rocks just needs a set of quickdraws and a rope, it's a lot of sport climbs. It's an easy way for new climbers to get into the sport,” Frerk added. “Whereas with Stone Hill, it’s like a mixed-climbing area where you're gonna need a few pieces of traditional gear to supplement the bolts.”

In the future, the coalition hopes to install signs on their trails at Stone Hill. They also want to revive the “Kooc Crank,” a climbing competition at Lake Koocanusa that ran from 1988-91.

Frerk says the coalition would also like to channel their energies to the Point of Rocks climbing area. To that end, they are working to develop a relationship with the Stillwater State Forest which oversees that area.

“Right now, those bolts are all new at Point of Rocks and the routes are scrubbed but we can definitely do some trial work and the parking fills up in the summertime,” said Frerk describing some of the improvements he hopes to make in the future. “It’d be really nice to get a toilet out there of some sort.”

To learn more or to donate to the Northwest Montana Climbing Coalition, visit nwmtcc.org or accessfund.org.