Out there with Tom: Is it Havre or Bullhook? New hiking area up north

Katie in one of the lava-created draws

Mount Lieberg

The shadows highlight to dike coming off Mount Lieberg

We are always looking around for new hiking possibilities, especially in the Front, and the Island Ranges.

Katie found a real dandy recently and we gave it a try: the newly opened Bullhook Trail a few miles outside Havre. Directions: Location: very south end of Bullhook Butte (aka Saddle Butte). Directions: take 14th Ave/Clear Creek Rd in Havre to Bullhook Rd. Proceed on Bullhook Rd about 1.5 miles until the pavement ends, continue and 0.2 miles later on the left (east) you'll see the parking lot.

It's not particularly long or hard, but it is really scenic. I clocked 1.8 miles and about 660 elevation gain and loss on a main loop, but using your imagination with a good cutacross trail you could increase this.

This small butte (mountain?) is a lava outflow. A well-developed and in part, steep trail leads through small canyons created by the outcrops.

Access has been donated by the Lieberg family and the high point bears the Mount Lieberg name.

From the top there are tremendous views of the Sweetgrass Hills, the Bearspaw Mountains and the Highwood Mountains, and into the Bullhook Bottom, and Milk River flats into Canada.

It's called "Bullhook" Butte because the top looks like a bison bull hooked it, creating a notch.

Bullhook was railroad magnate J.J. Hill's favored name for what is now Havre, the biggest city on the Hi-Line. However, he lost out a settler whose family lived in LaHavre in France.

The 110-miles drive to Havre was enhanced by a stop at Jenny's Kitchen across from the BN railway station at 416 1st St., a funky restaurant you'd expect from a town like Bozeman or Missoula. It is decorated with discarded industrial and agricultural objects and features an eclectic menu.

We're finding ourselves drawn more and more to Havre with its buffalo jump, Havre Beneath the Streets, Beaver Creek County Park hiking in the Bearspaws, Fort Assiniboine, and MSU Northern. Lots to do here.