Granite Peak, at an elevation of 12,807 feet (3,904 m) above sea level, is the highest natural point in the U.S. state of Montana, and is the tenth highest state high point in the nation. It lies within the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, in Park County very near the borders of Stillwater County and Carbon County. Granite Peak is 10 miles (16 km) north of the Wyoming border, 45 miles (72 km) southwest of Columbus, Montana.
Granite Peak is one of the most difficult U.S. state highpoint ascents, due to technical climbing, poor weather, and route finding. Granite Peak’s first ascent was made by Elers Koch, James C. Whitham and R.T. Ferguson on August 29, 1923 after several failed attempts by others. It was the last of the state highpoints to be climbed. Today, climbers typically spend two or three days ascending the peak, stopping over on the Froze-to-Death Plateau, although some climbers choose to ascend the peak in a single day.
Famous quotes containing the words granite and/or peak:
“Your wits can’t thicken in that soft moist air, on those white springy roads, in those misty rushes and brown bogs, on those hillsides of granite rocks and magenta heather. You’ve no such colours in the sky, no such lure in the distances, no such sadness in the evenings. Oh the dreaming! the dreaming! the torturing, heart-scalding, never satisfying dreaming, dreaming, dreaming, dreaming!”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his penthouse lid;
He shall live a man forbid;
Weary sev’n-nights, nine times nine,
Shall he dwindle, peak and pine;
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tossed.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)