Climbing
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If you’re new to Bozeman or to climbing, you may be surprised at the abundance of climbing opportunities in the area. There are literally hundreds of established routes within an hour’s drive. Route difficulty ranges from easy 5.6 to gnarly 5.13 climbs.
Rock climbers choose limestone, gneiss, or granite; sport or trad; boulder or roped up. Ice climbers revel in the icefall-laden Hyalite Canyon. And alpine climbers and mountaineers have hundreds of peaks to tackle, of varying degrees of difficulty. Whatever your climbing predilection, it's all right here, within an hour of Bozeman.
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Pull on your climbing shoes, buckle your life jacket, and saddle your horse: Paradise Valley has all the activities you need to satisfy your outdoor-adventure cravings this spring. With so much to do, you won’t even miss the snow.
Climbing Read more >>
Alex Lowe grew up with a deep and pure love for the mountains, instilled in him as a child by his parents who took him and his two brothers out into the wilderness of Montana. He felt at home among the unmarred peaks and boundless serenity of the most remote pitches the world had to offer. Read more >>
Pioneering athletes such as Pat Callis, Alex Lowe, Ed Anacker, and Tom Jungst established Bozeman’s reputation as a premier outdoor-sports community. Read more >>
Rock
It’s hard not to feel like a kid in a candy store at Bozeman’s Spire Climbing Center. With over 8,000 square feet of climbing at an indoor facility that features new Skittle-colored routes every week, novice and expert climbers alike would be hard-pressed to find a better way to spend the day. Read more >>
Paradise Valley has no shortage—or variety—of good stone along its length: backyard alpine at Mount Cowen, exciting trad in Mill Creek, quality bouldering on both sides of Yankee Jim Canyon. Read more >>
I am climbing Granite Peak, the highest mountain in Montana, and sweat keeps greasing down my brow and burning into my eyes. I’m choking back vomit and my spine feels like a roman candle, yet wallowing in this abject misery is glorious compared to what happened a few weeks ago. Read more >>Mountaineering
The second-highest point in the Spanish Peaks is neither named nor assigned an elevation on any National Forest or USGS map. Read more >>
With its blocky shape, truncated summit, and unique color, Sphinx Mountain has drawn more people climbers to its summit than any other major peak in the Madison Range. Read more >>Ice
Looking for a new venue for your favorite winter activity? Just head over the hill. Doesn’t matter what blows your hair back—once the snow comes down, you can find it in Paradise Valley. Read more >>
Once the domain of hardened alpinists, ice climbing has come a long way in its evolution and now anyone (thanks largely to modern equipment and Gallatin County snowplows) can enjoy a sense of adventure, complete with warming afternoon sun and hot cocoa between rounds on the vertical. Read more >>
There’s a lot of lingo in ice climbing: V-thread, spectres, frontpoint, flute, serac, and WI4, to name a few. Fresh off my first hard ice climb, the pain in my hands taught me another interesting phrase: screaming barfies. Read more >>
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