Arrow Leaf Balsam Root was a dominant wildflower on this hike.

Katie had her camera out to shoot wildflowers throughout the hike.

Looking down on the Sun River.

Gibson Lake from the overlook.

Quick run to the Front

The red marks the way I had used to travel in this area.  The "boot prints" mark where we hiked Sunday.

For years I had taken a Sun Canyon Lodge horse trail when I wanted to explore the Sawtooth Ridge area.
A couple of years ago Matt Marcinek suggested I try an official Forest Service trail, No. 277, that begins about a half mile north of Home Gulch right off the main Sun Canyon Road.
It shows on the map as a loop that arcs above Red Lake on its return.
Very good horse/elk trails continue on the ridgeline to the north end of the Sawtooth Ridge where we've discovered a very good climbing route.
This ridge is the boundary between the national forest and the state game range and is a great spot to see where the elk migrate between summer and winter range.  Hunters have set up blinds in this area.
On Sunday my wife and I did the short hike above Red Lake just to check out this section of trail I had never taken and were very satisfied with the experience.

Blue Belles

We began near a couple of summer homes and found the trailhead for the trail that looks like a reclaimed road. The 1990 Bob Marshall Complex map shows it as a road to where it meets Trail No. 267 coming up from Sun Canyon Lodge.  The "loop" part of the trail goes over the ridgeline and down a steep draw on the national forest side of the game range boundary.
All the horse trails coming from every which-way makes consistent trail finding problematic.
The route we chose Sunday is very direct and solves some of that trail-finding.
The old route, marked in red on the map comes up from the lodge's main arch-way gate, an imposing structure of huge logs.
No matter which route is taken, the scenery is breath-taking.  The up-side of taking Trail No. 277 is that it stays on a ridgeline and Castle Reef and and the Sawtooth Ridge, the two gate posts of the Sun River Canyon, are always in sight.

Lupine

Incidentally, the trail rises abruptly from the parking area, so be prepared for some huffing and puffing right out of the car.
What made our hike Sunday particularly enjoyable was the amazing array of early wildflowers, particularly the arrowleaf balsamroots, lupine and brightly purple pasque flowers.

Snow in the draws on the way to Baldy saddle.

Plenty of snow on top

Highwood Baldy, flowers and green

A fairy slipper treat

I love the Highwoods in the spring.  They're so green and the flowers are everywhere.
I also like to see how I came through the winter and test my conditioning as soon as I can on Highwood Baldy, the highest peak in this island range at 7,620 feet.
The peak's size is deceptive.  It's a robust 3,200 feet from bottom to top.
There is still plenty of snow on top, which meant some post-holing and kicking steps --- and boot skiing.
That melting snow is fueling pretty good runoff and Highwood Creek was mighty cold to cross the requisite three times to reach the Deer Creek trailhead.
It also fueled some gorgeous cascades in the forks of the creek.

Cascade on a fork of Deer Creek in the Highwoods

I'm not crazy about the top of this peak.  There's a road coming up from the south side and it is used by various communications companies for their relays, repeaters, etc. It appears as though a new shed has been constructed in the past year to add to the Bresnan building.
Yet, the climb is worth if, if for no other reason than the views from the top are amazing in every direction.
I was gratified that I hit the top in about 2 hours and 25 minutes from where I parked the car at the Thane Creek turnoff and having to wade the wide, high, cold creek three times!

My route

There was plenty of snow in the high country and along ridge lines in the Highwoods Saturday.

Briggs Creek was running high so it was nice to find a "bridge."

Pasque flower is a sure sign of spring.

The remnants of a forest fire past.

Ridge walking in the Highwoods

A cluster of Shooting Stars with Highwood Baldy in the background.

It's greener than green and the wildflowers are out in profusion in the Highwood Mountains.
We took a hike there Saturday mostly off trail and along the many ridges that separate the North Fork of Highwood Creek, Briggs Creek and Thane Creek.
It was crystal clear with great visibility in all directions.
The water was running high from the snow melt off the high peaks like Arrow and Baldy, both of which could have been skied.

One of the three elk we saw on our Highwoods ridge stroll

The surprise of the day was bumping into three elk grazing in a saddle between ridgelines.
The aspen groves were among the most gorgeous of sights, a chartreuse color as they blanketed the un-trailed gulches.

In nearly every gulch we saw the newly leafed aspen.

We also climbed the highest little unnamed peak on the ridgeline at 6,201, nearly 2,000 feet from our starting point on the North Fork of Highwood Creek trailhead.

Our ridge walking route in the Highwoods.

This gives a pretty good idea of what we skied off.

My annual birthday photo --- this one for age 64!

This is what Mark looked like from where I lay in the snow.

This is what it looked like when I fell into the deep, wet snow.

We skied down to an emerging spring.

Breaking trail was tough because of the deep snow.

Good, but wet late April snow a great way to celebrate a birthday

I like to take a birthday ski, hike or climb and this year the weatherman delivered a good dump of snow in the Little Belt Mountains that made for a great present.
I let Saturday, the actual day of my 64th birthday pass, but started my 65th year with a great ski Sunday up the road east of Kings Hill that serves as the trail to Deadman, stopping at the top and skiing off the south slopes.
About 18 inches of fresh, heavy snow had fallen over the past two days on little to no base.  It was tough to break trail.
We knew we would need an extra steep slope to do tele turns.
We had originally started off for the Weatherwax bowls, but decided against them because Kings Hill Pass parking area was full of snowmobiles and we knew they were headed there.
We made a wise choice.
The upper reaches of our slopes were quite heavy and I found turns tough to make.
About 200 feet down we reached a cliff band of rocks we had to negotiate.  Below was another 500 feet of beautiful tele slopes with a scattering of trees and an open, flowing spring at the bottom.
We could have continued down to U.S. 89, but opted against it because of the walk back to the pass and the car.
So, we broke snow, climbing back up a ways and hit some more turns before finally cutting our way back to the top.
It was a great way to start a new year!

The red line is where we telemark skied after we hit the top of the road from Kings Hill Pass.

Jim Heckel looks down 1,000 feet off the rim of Crown Butte.  That's Square Butte in the background.

The top of the butte was a combination of volcanic rock and ungrazed prairie grass with spectacular views in all directions.

Sandstone remnants amidst the volcanics.

The Crown Butte "gendarme" spires.