Sec. B Page 5 Missoulian Centennial Mt. Lolo Trips in 1890s
Mt. Lolo Trips In 1890s
Prof. Morton J. Elrod of the Montana State University faculty and three companions climbed to the top of Mt. Lolo during the first week of August in 1898. He said that with an aneroid barometer it was determined that the first summit was 8,900 feet, the second 9,300 and the third 9,500.
On reaching the first peak they found the pile of stones and boughs placed for a windbreak five years earlier in 1893 when two of them stayed on the peak all night. They also found a bottle in which they had hidden a memorandum on their first visit, the earliest record found on any of the three peaks. However, he said, there very likely could have been others before 1893 who had climbed it, leaving no record.
On the summit of the second peak they found three cartridges and the record of a party of young women and men who had climbed the peak in the summer of 1897. “Missoula can be seen far in the distance to the north, and the city seems ten times as far from the mountain when viewed from the top, as the mountain does from the city,” Prof. Elrod said.