Into the Little Belts

H. Wayne Phillips atop Butcherknife

Peter Johnson coming off Mount Irene

Mount Irene

The polluted Dry Fork of Belt Creek near Barker and Hughesville

I’m recovering from a hearty bout with the flu and what better place to regain my legs than the nearby Little Belt Mountains?
On Thursday I went there to climb Butcherknife Mountain (elevation: 7,944 feet), and on Saturday, Mount Irene (elevation: 7,299). Both are relatively easy walkups. Both can be reached by pleasant drives in just over an hour from Great Falls.
Butcherknife is a favorite of local elk hunters, and I can see why. There’s plenty of grass with adjacent tree cover in this high country.
To reach Butcherknife, drive to Stanford and take the Dry Wolf Road. It is about 14 miles up a good and scenic gravel road to the well-marked turnoff to the trailhead (another mile or so up a one-track road).
Butcherknife is a long ridgeline that leads to the highest peak in the Little Belts, Big Baldy (9,177 feet). I’ve skied up to Baldy’s flanks this way in the winter, up the Snow Creek, just south of Butcherknife Creek.
I was as much scouting Butcherknife for its backcountry ski potential as I was climbing this peak and walking its ridgeline.
I can report that the terrain appears to have exceptional cross country skiing and telemark potential.
Butcherknife Trail No. 417 rises steeply, and persistently through the woods at about 6,000 feet to the ridgeline at 7,100 feet. Then, it is a glorious walk across three “bumps” to the south until reaching the final bump, a more scree and talus slope than the other two, in reaching the top.
The first two are grass covered and the northwest facing slopes would no doubt be excellent telly territory.
The views from the top included the north side of Baldy, Yogo, Bandbox, Gibson, Taylor peaks, Peterson, Clendennin, Mixes Baldy, Barker, Tiger Butte, Bighorn, Thunder, Neihart Baldy and Long peaks in a complete circle around us. Unfortunately, it was a tad smoky.
We came straight down the peak to the east, following grassy slopes into an old clearcut that has come back nicely, feasting on scads of raspberries along the way. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many ripe, wild berries for the picking at one time.
We descended on an old logging road until tiring of it, plunging headlong into alder thickets and slopes covered with windfall. We came away with a few scratches and noticed lots of elk sign. I can see why the elk like this enclosed, isolated country. The route we chose was beneath a prominent limestone outcropping that dominated the landscape there.
The Little Belts were so pleasant that we decided to return on Saturday, this time on an exploration of the extreme northern end, looking for a route on Mount Irene.
Irene is about 1,000 feet lower than the dominant peak in the area, Mount Barker. It is connected by a ridgeline.
In part, what made this peak appealing was the drive through new territory.
To reach it we traveled to Raynesford, east of Belt, turned at the Kibby corner gas station, headed six miles through Kibby Canyon and turned at the unmarked Kibby county road. We went another six miles through the spectacular Limestone Canyon (some nice summer homes located here) where we found the rough county road up Big Otter Creek to the south. The road is marked with a warning that the road is unimproved, but has a Forest Service road distance sign, indicating it was six more miles to the forest boundary. I can see where the road would be challenging to anything other than a four-wheel drive vehicle, which I have. I wouldn’t drive it when wet, though. In about four miles we came to a sign indicating a state Fish, Wildlife and Parks hunters walk-in area just below Irene Peak. This would have been a good place to access the peak directly.
Instead, we continued another two miles up the road as it became increasingly rougher and steeper and began to switchback. Luckily, there were no other cars as we headed uphill to a pass above the Dry Creek country, where we did finally meet another car tentative about heading down.
This pass, at about 6,100 feet, gave us good access to the ridgeline that eventually lead to Irene.
Since I didn’t have a topographical map with me, I was guessing which peak was Irene, and ruled out the first one when we topped out at nearly 7,700 feet. We figured out that this was a rib of Barker. So we headed down the ridgeline to a saddle below Irene.
Irene is an old volcanic peak full of loose talus that was tough to walk on. From the saddle it was another 300 feet up this stuff.
The views from the top were remarkable. Off in the distance the Highwoods, Round and Square buttes came into view. Belt Butte was a pimple on the plains.
Peterson, Mixes Baldy, and Clendennin were the big peaks to the east, Big Baldy to the southeast, and Barker blocked the view to the southwest. We could see a good ridgeline extending from Irene to Otter peak. Unfortunately, there was some smoke in the air.
On the way down we dropped to the saddle where we found a good game trail that lead us around the 7,700 foot peak, so we didn’t have to reclimb it. We left Barker for another day.
The game trail was most scenic, offering great views of limestone cliffs below us and on the flanks of Clendennin.
Back at the car we continued our drive, dropping first in the mining ghost town of Hughesville, and then its sister ghost town of Barker. There are more old mining structures in Hughesville than Barker, but more summer homes in the Barker area. The old structures are quite scenic and historic, if toxic and polluting. I stopped to shoot photos of Dry Creek, which runs a bright, metal laden orange.
There are signs of environmental cleanup along the way, but the pollution seems so huge I wondered if it would ever be restored.
Eventually the creek loses its orange color as it flows into Belt Creek near Monarch.
The drive down Dry Creek is beautiful for the high limestone cliffs.
We had accomplished our climb and had a nice drive to boot!

Mills Falls a pleasant surprise

Leila Kotynski enjoys Mill Falls

It’s always nice to be surprised, particularly when the surprise comes when experiencing the familiar.
Such was the case last week after a hike to Headquarters Pass in the Rocky Mountain Front up the South Fork of the Teton outside of Choteau, a trip I’ve done maybe 30 times.
After this spectacular hike, I decided it might be worthwhile to check out the nearby Mills Falls campground and take a look at the falls.
The campground is located about a mile east of the parking lot for the Headquarters Pass/Our Lake trailhead. It is very small, with space for only four campsites.
It is far enough off the road that it is back in the trees and away from road noise ---- very secluded.
At the end of the campground road is a sign pointing to the falls.
The falls are about 100 yards from this sign along an informal, flat trail.
They spill about 30 feet over a cliff, which drains a small South Fork of the Teton River feeder stream.
For those with a limited amount of time or energy or just wanting a drive and a picnic, this is the perfect spot for seclusion and great scenery. Its ease of access is similar to Cataract Falls off Elk Creek in the Front near Augusta, and it is a shorter hike than Memorial Falls in the Little Belts Mountains.

Deep into the South

Iconic Arsenic Peak rises above the trail

A selfie atop South Peak

Looking back across a horse pasture on the way to South Peak

Although the Sun Canyon country is among the most scenic in the Front, I don’t get there very often.
Yes, I love to climb Sawtooth and Castle Reef and run the parallel ridges.
But generally, I find the trails there don’t offer the alpine, above-timberline vistas I crave.
So, I haven’t been back to the Blacktail-Mortimer-Big George country in about 17 years.
Gene Sentz of Choteau was my spur to revisit that country by pointing out that you could pick out South Peak (elevation: 8,425 feet) from Highway 89, making it a candidate for climbing, since I’m trying to get all the Front’s named peaks.
It is just far enough back from the trailhead that it took great effort to climb this beautiful, remote mountain.
It meant starting from the Mortimer Campground on Gibson Reservoir by picking up Forest Service Trail No. 252. The trail climbs steadily above Mortimer Gulch, just above the private inholdings on the Triple J dude ranch and some other summer vacation homes.
In the first three miles you have to go through two gates.
You’re in the trees most of the way, although in a couple of spots it opens up and you can see the large unnamed peak to the north, the top of Castle Reef to the east, and Sawtooth to the southeast. The views Wednesday were obscured by smoke drifting in from the fires in the west and a cold front that brought in rain clouds.
The trail crests the reef and heads down into Big George Gulch, where it intersects with Trail No. 251 and begins climbing to a pass above the head of one of the forks of Blacktail Gulch. Then it climbs steeply to the pass above Cabin Creek, a tributary of the North Fork of the Sun River, where it enters the Bob Marshall Wilderness. It switchbacks 20 times on its way up to this pass.
This is where the real mountaineering begins. You leave the trail here, and for the next mile and a half to the summit you follow game trails and the ridgeline.
The peak is just a walk-up, but this ridgeline offered the best views of the day, looking down into the Deep Creek country to the east, the high Teton country peaks to the north, the Sun River and Bob Marshall to the west.
Along the way I saw a good-sized flock of bighorn sheep.
As usual, I saw no one all day long, although I was on trail for 9 hours in good weather during the height of summer!

Kiyo Crag traverse

Kiyo Crag mountain with Kiyo Crag Lake below

From the top of Kiyo Crag looking down on the lake

On the ridge line looking toward Half Dome peak

It had been more than a dozen years since I had ventured to the Palookaville trailhead in the Badger Two Medicine Wilderness Study Area near Heart Butte.
It is as tough a trailhead as there is to find in the Lewis and Clark National Forest, but worth the effort.
I miscalculated the time and effort it would take for this day hike: a traverse and climb of the Kiyo Crag ridgeline.
The road sign number doesn’t match the Forest Visitor’s map or the Bob Marshall Wilderness complex map’s number. Both show the road number as 9218. The road sign show 9128. Why the Forest Service leaves this sign up or doesn’t correct its maps mystifies me. I passed right by it the first time, driving nearly to East Glacier Park, before I realized the error and turned back.
The road is a pretty rough drive, too. I wouldn’t take my car in there in wet weather. The road is deeply rutted and rocky.
Here are the best directions I can come up with to find the trailhead: from Heart Butte take the Heart Butte-Browning Road north about 8 miles to Little Badger Creek. Just north of the creek there’s a road with a paved turnout coming in from the west. Take that about a mile-and-a-half where you’ll see a ranch house. There’s a dirt track road there with the brown Forest Service road sign No. 9128 on it. Follow that about 4.5 miles where it intersects with a short road that drops to the trailhead. You’ll find the Forest Service Trail No. 172. The road you just left continues to the top of Mount Baldy! It is used to service the electronics equipment on the mountaintop. Some attain the Kiyo Crag ridgeline by driving to it, rather than hiking to it as I did.
The trailhead is located in a place called “Palookaville.” I thought it might be named for the mythical comics boxing character Joe Palooka. The Forest Service history card file doesn’t give the derivation of the name. I’ve been told that Palookaville is a corruption of “Polackville,” named for a rancher of Polish descent.
The trail itself is not well marked to begin with. From the parking lot find a small path to your right and follow it across the creek and up a small rise. You’re on the trail.
To get to the ridgeline, I went up the trail through open grass-filled slopes for about a mile and then got off, heading up toward some ledges that run parallel to, and above the creek. I walked these ledges, aiming for a saddle between Baldy Mountain and the Kiyo ridge. I eventually happened on the Baldy Road, which took me to the saddle.
Then I had a magnificent stroll along the ridge at roughly 7,000 feet. I could see the alpine Kiyo Crag Lake below me 1,000 feet through limestone spires. It is an easy walk to the lake off a spur from the main Trail No. 172.
Kiyo Crag, which means “bear mountain” is white limestone and has that classic Bob Marshall Wilderness look you’d find in the Augusta area mountains; reefs rising to peaks, punctuated by ledges. While the topo maps I looked at didn’t indicate its height, my altimeter indicated it at just under 7,500 feet --- about 2,300 foot gain from the trailhead.
There is nothing hard about climbing this peak. It is a walkup, with the last 200 feet limestone talus.
Views from the top included the southeast end of Glacier Park, the Bob Marshall and Great Bear wilderness areas to the west, and the Great Plains over the Front to the east. I was able to pick out classic Glacier peaks like Rising Wolf, Summit, and Divide as well as Great Northern and Grant peaks in the Great Bear. The heart of the Badger-Two Medicine Wilderness Study Area lay at my feet. The Blackfeet Reservation pothole lakes dotted the prairie.
On top you realize that it wouldn’t be hard to continue on the ridgeline to the higher Half Dome Crag mountain. However, I was out of time and came down the steep talus east ridgeline, connected to a gentler north ridge and eventually gained the trail.