Yet another failure to positively link Blackleaf to Clary on the Front's 'Grand Traverse'

The Blackleaf to Clary Grand Traverse starts at Blackleaf Canyon

Mineral developers left evidence above Muddy Creek Falls

The prominent "block" above Blindhorse Creek where we couldn't find our trail link

This poor ram didn't make it out

Evidence that Fall is nearby

 

We were running out of daylight, but treated to a Rocky Mountain Front sunset

 

 The scenery was unbelievably beautiful, but the Rocky Mountain Front "Grand Traverse" hike was unbelievably frustrating.

For the second time in a row I failed to find the link between the Blackleaf Canyon (FS 153) and Clary Coulee (FS 177) trails, which meant we had to rely on an old bushwhack.

It also meant we hiked out in the dark, getting off trail at 10 p.m., and home at 1 a.m..

This was even more frustrating because about 20 years ago I easily led a group through this linkage that went down a dry waterfall.  What's more, my wife Katie subsequently did a Montana Wilderness Association hike on the linked route under the guidance of the late Dan Bennett, and she doesn't recall any problems.

But we sure had problems on this most recent hike.

We started at Blackleaf and began exploring for the linkage at the forks of Blindhorse Creek.  We spent some three hours clawing our way up steep and wooded hillsides in vain.  This is where we were skunked five years ago.

Luckily, Gordon Whirry had mapped the bushwhack when we didn't find it in 2021. 

Our failures cost us daylight, but it was a delight to watch the sun set on the Rocky Mountain Front over the Ear Mountain area.   We walked more than an hour in the dark down to our cars at Clary Coulee.

The roughly six miles to where the hike went awry were a forest that reminded of what the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area looked like before fires started sweeping through it in the early 1980s.

It was also interesting to see where the oil and gas exploration and development had occurred above Muddy Creek Falls.  The old extraction equipment littered an otherwise beautiful meadow.

 Beneath three unnamed peaks, one of which resembles a square block, the terrain opens up into grassland and great views of a peak we've named Guthrie, in honor of the late Choteau writer,  and the adjacent Choteau Mountain (referred to locals as the Sleeping Giant). 

There's been considerable cattle grazing on most of Blackleaf trail segment.

But none of this really distracts from the high limestone peaks that march north to south along this mountain front. 

My Garmin InReach GPS showed we had hiked 15.5 miles and had a cumulative gain and loss of 4,000 feet.  We hiked for about 11 hours.

As we hiked beyond Blindhorse toward Pamburn Creek and our bushwhack route, I was unsettled by the sight of a new cabin behind a fence that announced a firing range with keep out signs.

I can't imagine what it took to haul the materials into this remote area and to build it and fence it.

This was my last shot at a hike for a clear route approximating what I had done more than 20 years ago.

The bushwhack route will have to do.

POSTSCRIPT:  A week prior to this Grand Traverse I managed to hike the length of Crawford Creek and to the tunnel on the Sluice Boxes State Park trail, both in the Little Belts.