Photo courtesy Esther Gruell

Photo courtesy Morton Levitan

Top, Kanzler and Pogreba, the most skilled climbers in the group; Jerry Kanzler captured his brother Jim, Pogreba, and Martin on a first ascent of Citadel Spire two years earlier. Looming in the background is the north face of Mount Cleveland.

Compared to the peaks of Colorado, Glacier National Park's mountains are, in height at least, modest. But there are no discernible foothills here. You come up the Flathead Valley from the south, or across the plains from the east, and there it is: a mighty fortress of mountains, rising without preamble from the flatland, beckoning and forbidding your approach. In winter, because they trap clouds moving in either direction, the mountains of Glacier are blanketed by incredible amounts of snow; along the Continental Divide, annual snowfall can reach 1,000 inches—more than 80 feet. Much of it falls on Mount Cleveland. But in 1969, no one would know just how much snow covered its upper reaches until it was too late.

Looming over the north-central section of the park, Cleveland's summit affords unmatched views—the Glacier peaks to the south, Alberta and British Columbia to the north, Idaho to the west, a hundred miles of prairie to the east. Because it is inaccessible, miles and mountains away from any road, Cleveland cannot be driven to and climbed in a day. In winter there are no rangers nearby, no tourists. There is only the wind, blowing over the ridges.

The winter of 1969 had already seen some big avalanches up high on Mount Cleveland, some snapping trees as they came rumbling down. "That mountain doesn't give a damn about anyone," Canadian naturalist Kurt Seel once told a local paper. "In the summertime, rocks roll constantly. In the wintertime, it's the wind and snow. That mountain is alive all the time."

At the St. Mary ranger station, Frauson drove that point home. For some time, the boys told him, people had been telling them the expedition was foolhardy. But Frauson figured his role was to advise, not to scold. He warned them about the mountain's severe weather patterns and impressed upon them the extreme difficulty of rescue should they run into trouble. Mount Cleveland was particularly prone to avalanches, he cautioned, sometimes ten or 15 a day. Rocky-faced and rising well above timberline, the peak is virtually bare at its upper reaches. No trees means no anchors for the vast fields of snow.

Moreover, Frauson emphasized, the north face had recently been glazed over by an ice storm; it was "an escalator of moving snow." He argued that it would be more prudent to try the comparatively easy route along the southwest ridge. Though precipitous on both sides, it would steer them clear of the rock- and snowslides so prevalent on the north face. They would also avoid the center of the west face, which presented serious dangers of its own. Its geometry—a "parabolic mirror," Frauson called it—made it exceedingly dangerous avalanche terrain after even the slightest accumulation of snow. Climbing a bowl is like climbing half a funnel, the wider end above catching snow until it can no longer hold it all. Once the strain becomes too great, the snow dumps down the bowl from all sides. By the time the funnel narrows, the snow is running very fast and very deep.

The boys assured Frauson that they would use extreme caution, but the mission was still a go. They told him not to worry unless they had failed to report back by noon on Friday, January 2. As they left, he wrote in his station logbook: "Five boys checked out to climb Cleveland on six-day expedition."