Tough way into the Bob Marshall

Atop Bennie Hill in the Bob Marshall Wilderness

It was a stormy day. We were tired of going back to the same areas.
It was a perfect prescription for an exploration day.
So, Saturday we headed up toward the entrance of the Bob Marshall Wilderness west of Dupuyer, up the North Fork of Dupuyer Creek, which flows out of a deep canyon between Old Man of the Hills and Walling Reef mountains.
We decided we’d just go out to see what was there, thinking it unlikely that we’d scale anything in the unsettled weather. Deep, dark rolls of storm clouds hung over the Rocky Mountain Front. We had originally set out to walk the Choteau Mountain ridgeline or do the Mounts Richmond/Sentinel traverse.
The mountains had a silver hue on them as we approached, almost as if they had been hammered by snow. It was a very odd light show where the sunrise was enhancing the limestone face of the Front.
We were armed with a Bob Marshall complex map, some advice from the Sage of the Front, Gene Sentz of Choteau, and some sketchy memories I had of doing this some 20 years ago on a trail run.
We knew we’d have to pass through some gates and be ready for four-wheeling, which I was sure my Rav4 was capable of handling.
To reach the trailhead you take the road west out of Dupuyer that runs by the new post office, passing through the Boone and Crocket Teddy Roosevelt Ranch. I remembered that I ditched my car far before the forest boundary many years back, and ran to the trail because the road was too rough for my sedan.
The Roosevelt ranch headquarters were easy enough to find, but we immediately headed off on the wrong road and after passing through four gates, were blocked by a locked gate just short of entrance to the canyon.
We worked our way back and found the proper road, which is south and east of the headquarters and then heads west toward the canyon.
The last seven miles of road is quite sketchy. There are four gates and four creek crossings and some pretty deep ruts and mud holes. This is not the kind of country you want to take the family streetcar, but my Rav handled it well.
You are less than a mile from the gates of the canyon when the road runs out in one of the most beautiful campsites I’ve ever seen.
The North Fork Dupuyer Canyon is one of the most beautiful on the front, very similar to the Blackleaf Canyon, but grander. The walls are higher and smoother, the creek faster and with more water in it than Blackleaf Creek, and the area much more pristine since Blackleaf has been logged, roaded and subjected to natural gas development.
You pass between Old Man of the Hills and Walling Reef mountains. This would be a much better way to climb Walling Reef than the much more accessible Swift Dam trailhead via Phillips Creek traverse that I had done some 10 years ago. The trail up the North Fork climbs to a high pass below a massive, unnamed ridge to the west and south. There are side trails up Canyon Creek that parallels Walling Reef and Potshot Creek that sits below Bennie Hill.
The weather cleared sufficiently for us to consider climbing Bennie Hill (elevation 7,830 feet). We took the Potshot trail and left the trail and the southeast ridge of the mountain. It is about 2,500 feet to the top, which is reminiscent of Beartop lookout in the Bob Marshall above the North Fork of the Sun River. There are steep limestone outcrops along the ridgeline.
We were very surprised to find the remains of an old wilderness fire lookout at the top of the mountain.
There were wonderful views of Patrick Gass, Bumshot, Drewyer, Crooked, Fields and Sentinel mountains to the west, and spectacular views of the Rocky Mountain Front peaks to the east. I later found out that this mountain was named for a small boy who had accompanied a forest ranger on a horseback ride in this area. It was hard to imagine how supplies were hauled to this steep mountain. I suspect from the pass above the North Fork and then up a ridgeline to the top of Bennie Hill.
We got rain on the way out, but it didn’t amount to much.
It was amazing to see how green this area was --- a tribute to the frequent rains we’ve received this summer.
We noticed that a bear had been very active along the Potshot Trail. There were many overturned rocks where he had been looking for insects to eat. Unfortunately we never got a glimpse of him.
On the way out we discovered that we could have saved about 10 miles of driving by heading directly west to the trailhead on the good road at the Pendroy turnoff on U.S. 89 rather than going all the way to Dupuyer.
We vowed we’d be back to this wild, unused part of the Bob Marshall soon.

Bandbox in Little Belts

Climbing Bandbox Mountain in the Little Belts

The high quality of the recreation in the Little Belt Mountains is one of northcentral Montana’s best-kept secrets.From Great Falls or Lewistown this gorgeous, low-slung mountain range is an easy drive, providing great hiking, fishing, driving or wildlife viewing opportunities.For those on a tight schedule there are many half-day trips to be had.

We took one of those on Sunday, setting off for Bandbox Mountain (elevation 8,100 feet) in the Dry Wolf Creek campground area about 20 miles south of Stanford.
Just as hunters have been scouting the mountains in preparation of elk season, we were scouting this area for cross-country and telemark skiing opportunities --- and found plenty.
We had used this area in the past as a jumping off point to ski up the massive Big Baldy Mountain (over 9,000 feet) in the spring. While we were doing that we looked east and south and spotted the big, above-timberline Bandbox and vowed to return.
Bandbox is easily climbed by ascending one of a number of ridges right up from the campground or a mile or two beyond the campground up the road. It is about 2,000 feet up the mountain from the valley floor.
The views of Big Baldy and Yogo peaks get progressively better as you ascend to the ridgeline. It is a true walk up where you don’t have to use your hands. The way is marked by giant rock cairns.
On top you can see Gibson Peak to the north, Butcherknife and Baldy to the west, Yogo and the parallel Ettien and Sand Point ridges to the south, to the east many rugged limestone canyons.
We left Great Falls before 7 a.m., were on the trail before 9 a.m., and on top before 11 a.m., and back to the car before 1 p.m., and home around 2:30 p.m.
It was surprising to see how green it was up this canyon. Far cry from the previous years of drought we’ve suffered through the past two decades.
We noted the Forest Service Cabin on Dry Wolf and decided we’d be back in several months to rent it to pursue the various trips we had conceptualized.

Saturday was an at-home day with hikes to the Farmers’ Market and along River’s Edge Trail to Giant Springs State Park. I encountered numerous out of state folks happily strolling through.
We also went to an anniversary party for two couples celebrating their 20th wedding anniversaries. Refreshing departure from the norm of divorcing couples.

A "tourist's" view of Glacier

Beth Myers of Milwaukee enjoying a walk on McDonald Creek Falls

Sometimes a “sightseeing” trip to the local sights is just what the doctor ordered.
Such was the case last weekend when we took off for a “driving” weekend of Glacier Park.
We did the lodges (Glacier Park Lodge, Lake McDonald, Many Glacier, even the Isaac Walton). We drove the Going to the Sun Highway. We did the St. Mary boat ride. We hiked short trails. We did the evening campfire ranger-talk. We stayed in the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn rather than a campground. In short, we were tourists.
It was quite a good weekend for this kind of trip because the bears were out in large numbers. On Saturday we saw seven bears and are certain that at least four of them were grizzlies.
In fact, the grizzlies created a giant traffic jam just below Two Dog Flats between the road and St. Mary Lake. I’ve never seen such a snarl in the park. When we went back Sunday the rangers had cordoned off the area and put up signs prohibiting any kind of stopping in the stretch where we saw the bears.
Here are some of the other highlights of this two-day trip:
--- The traffic delays on the Going to the Sun Highway appeared to be well managed with no stop over 10 minutes and little congestion.
--- Logan Pass is a real problem. Unless you come early or arrive in the evening you’ll be lucky to find a place to park. That means no hiking along the Garden Wall or Hidden Lake trails. We consoled ourselves with a small hike up Lunch Creek --- never congested, and quite spectacular. I can see the day coming where you’ll have to take the shuttle or a jammer to be able to visit this pass.
--- While there are no major fires in Montana this summer, the park has been full of smoke day after day from the Canadian fires. It has been spoiling vistas.
--- It seems a shame that more American kids aren’t taking the park concession jobs. I’m glad to see the Polish, Slovakian, and other eastern European kids, but miss the days when you would see American kids from all over the country working these jobs and hiking the trails. I wonder if it is a sign of the bad economy that kids can’t afford these low paying jobs because their college tuitions have been skyrocketing.
--- It’s quite a kick to stand in the parking lot throughout the day at the Swiftcurrent Inn and see the tourists there gazing upward at the hillside below Mount Henkel, looking for bears --- which are usually there.
--- If you are depressed, go to Glacier Park. The tourists there are uniformly happy and will cheer you. I’ve never been anyplace where people are so cheerful about their surroundings.
--- While the bear crop seems huge, the huckleberry crop is really lacking this year.
--- I learned a few new things on the St. Mary boat ride: that the remains of the cabin constructed on a promontory into the lake by James Hill’s son are still there --- a pile of lumber that’s considered historic. That there is a second island in the lake --- Rainbow Island --- certainly not as famous as Goose Island, the most photographed place in the park.
Meanwhile, while my girlfriend and her daughter went off for a horseback ride on Sunday, I took the free hours to climb the ridge above Grinnell Point and the saddle between that ridge and Grinnell Mountain, in preparation for an eventual climb. The views from the top were spectacular. I had a great line on Grinnell Glacier and Mount Gould and Mount Wilbur was the biggest thing in sight. Below, Grinnell Lake was a turquoise jewel.

A fogged in Swan Peak

A fogged in, aborted climb of Swan Peak

I guess it’s a sign that the drought may be loosening its grip on Montana.
Four times this summer I’ve had to alter or abort climbing trips because of the wet or fogged in weather.
It happened to me again on Saturday when I went to the Swan Valley in western Montana to climb Swan Peak (9,289 feet) with a group from the Glacier Mountaineering Society.
Even in good weather this is a very long day trip, probably best off to be done in two days.
We were led by Jim Valentine, of Somers, who loves this area and has pioneered a direct route to the top by tending a trail in the otherwise nearly impassable tangle of Squeezer Creek.
He can show you a topographic map where he’s gone just a little further each year setting a path to the two alpine lakes just below the peak. He’s had the help of Plum Creek timber, which owns some of the land and has cruised and marked trees, and local outfitters who have used chainsaws to clear trail for their horses. Jim has also “tagged” the area with bright orange and shocking pink tapes that can’t be missed. They are necessary because the foliage here is so thick. Without his trail the bushwhack to the lakes and this direct route would be a hellacious experience.
Still, this is a very primitive trail certainly not built to Forest Service specs and it can be tough to follow as it snakes its way up the Squeezer valley.
There is no forest on the east side of the Continental Divide anything like this dense mix of trees and other vegetation. There are some areas where you can peer off into the tangle and can’t see beyond 20 feet because the trees and foliage are so thick and dark.
I found walking took more mental energy than I had expected.
On the east side of the divide you’ve always got vistas to marvel over --- the trees are sparse enough and short enough you can see through them or over them for miles.
It made me admire the mental toughness of the west side orienteers who put in the trails or go off trail to spots on a map.
This Squeezer Creek route gains about 1,000 feet in the first several miles and at the north fork juncture gains more than 2,000 feet to the first and then second Squeezer lakes.
At the clearing at the foot of the first Squeezer Lake we were treated to the sight of two mother elk with two calves at the head of the lake. They quickly scampered off and up to the upper Squeezer Lake, whose waters cascade over a waterfall into lower Squeezer Lake.
The headwalls above both lakes are quite striking. Granite, argillite and sedimentary rocks abruptly rise more than 1,000 feet.
Unfortunately, a dense cloud-cover and fog never lifted and temperatures plunged toward the 30s, with a brisk wind, and we decided that it would be folly to climb a peak we couldn’t see.
Now I know the route to the summit ridge and will come back another day.
Despite this being a high-summer weekend the traffic in the Swan Valley was sparse. Yes, there has been some subdivision and commercial development; this valley remains an isolated Montana jewel.

Red Eagle Mountain

On the false summit of Red Eagle Mountain on way to the top

I’ve always thought that Red Eagle Mountain in Glacier National Park is one of the most handsome and imposing mountains in the park.
It sits above the south shore of St. Mary Lake on the east side of the park and towers above the scenery of the lake.
I liked it so much that when I got my first computer I downloaded a screensaver featuring the mountain from the park Web site.
For years I’ve looked across the lake studying various routes up the mountain, a bit overwhelmed by how steep it is, and wondering how I would negotiate its timbered and red-scree slopes.
Saturday I set out for the park, thinking I might try Heaven’s Peak, the most prominent mountain in view on the park’s west side.
We set out from Great Falls at 5 a.m., but didn’t arrive in the park until just before 8 a.m. My climbing partner, Mark Hertenstein, looked up at Red Eagle, assessed the additional time it would take to drive over Logan Pass to Heaven’s Peak, and called Red Eagle for the day.
I’m glad he did, because the route we chose took us until 8:30 p.m. and we didn’t get back to Great Falls until 12:30 a.m. on Sunday, after stopping for supper at the Park Café.
Our route was simple: we got out at the Gunsight Pass cutoff trail west of the Sunrift Gorge and hiked toward St. Mary and Virginia Falls with the goal of hitting the park trail on the south side of St. Mary Lake. We figured we’d hike about four miles before starting up. We determined we would ascend at the stream that crossed the trail draining the second major waterfalls.
It turned out to be a good plan and we bushwhacked through some pretty heavy timber and deadfall before hitting the major cliff band, which we skirted and then found ourselves in a dry streambed/waterfall for 2,000 feet of slogging.
We headed for a saddle between the bright red-colored pointed peak with a cairn and flag (which we figured was Red Eagle Peak) and a band of dark colored diorite cliffs (which turned out to be the true peak).
Of course, we climbed the red peak and decided it was Red Eagle and proceeded toward the diorite outcropping and cliffs, figuring that to be Mahtotopa. Oddly, there was no climber’s register atop the red peak, but there was a new one on the flat topped, diorite/limestone peak.
The views from the top were spectacular: Red Eagle and St. Mary lakes below; the Norris traverse country and might Stimson peaks to the south; close by and across the lake Goat, Going to the Sun and Siyeh; and to the west the whole Logan Pass area.
Coincidentally, some old Hi-Line and Glacier Mountaineering Society friends had placed the new register the day before. Thanks John and April Carr and Bud Iszler. Dennis Bonawitz from the Flathead was on that same trip.
We proceeded down the peak on the line toward Little Chief Mountain, but were getting woefully short of water. We climbed the highest peak in sight before Little Chief along the way and then headed down into the valley below the snowfields hanging off the north flanks of Little Chief.
Mark led a perfect route through some pretty tough cliffs and we were able to replenish our water from a steam below high waterfalls coming off adjacent cliffs. We trudged through avalanche debris, at one point coming across three enormous curled bighorn sheep horns. I was surprised at how heavy they were.
From there it was a slog through lots of downed timber and brush adjacent to the stream. At several points there were benches of bright red argillite next to the rushing stream that had sharply cut its way through the rock. The benches were much the same as those encountered between St. Mary and Virginia Falls.
Then it was a pleasant walk back to the car past those falls, where we encountered some tourists, the first people we had seen this high summer day!
Looking back we realized that we had walked quite a distance and in climbing Red Eagle peak had gained 4,400 feet! We had gained much more than that when you through in Mahtotopa.
We were satisfied that we had made the right decision not to proceed on to Little Chief, as we would have been on the mountain long past dark before completing our trek.

Just one other note for the weekend: We went to the matinee showing of Spider-Man 2 on Sunday and enjoyed the movie and came away more convinced than ever about the increasingly deteriorating manners of many movie-goers.
A family had taken an infant into this movie and the child understandably fidgeted and cried and made noises throughout the movie, causing us to move.
When we moved the people behind us with two small children were allowing those kids, who were not interested in the movie to talk loudly and move about the theater freely.
There were many other instances of kids misbehaving throughout the movie.
Or was it the parents who were misbehaving?