Active June ends with hikes to Granite Butte and Patrol Mountain Lookouts

 

Katie and Gordon Whirry below the Granite Butte Lookout

There was some snow to skirt on the way to the lookout

Green Gentian Century flowers were a dominant wildflower on the hike

Gordon and Mark Hertenstein take a breather in the Honeymoon Basin below Patrol

The final approach to Patrol Mountain Lookout

I'm with Lookout Samsara Chapman for our annual visit

It's a colorful ridge walk down from lookout

It feels like real summer, with temperatures in the high 80s and gentle, warm breezes.

There's smoke from Canadian fires in the air, but it has produced only light haze.  The snow in our high country is largely gone and the rains have grown our grasses tall, which means we'll have a fire season of our own soon.

We jumped on two nice days to hike to Granite Butte lookout on the Continental Divide Trail off Stemple Pass, and to climb to the Patrol Mountain Lookout in the Bob Marshall Wilderness near the end of the Benchmark Road west of Augusta.

Granite Butte is rented out and inactive as a lookout, but Patrol Mountain is staffed by Samsara Chapman who has come back every summer 26 years.  I try to visit her there every year.

This was the first time to Granite Butte during the hiking season.  I've skied there several times.  When I skied I would use the road from Stemple and then turn up an intersecting road to the lookout.  It is drive able during the summer, and we saw two different trucks while there.  From Stemple we stayed on the Continental Divide Trail all the way.  I had skied much of this in the past, but was surprised by what appeared to be a reconstruction of a nice trail to the top once it left the meadows and entered the forest.  I immediately started to think about next year's ski season.  There are wonderful views all along the trail and to the lookout of the Scapegoat's highest peak, Red Mountain, Nevada Mountain and off in the distance Powell Peak in the Flint Creek Range.  The hike was 8 miles and 2,000 feet up and down.

It has been interested to see so many Green Gentian ("Century") flowers in the meadows, as I've seen in other mountain ranges.  Otherwise, there was some beargrass, groundsel, lupine, and even glacier lilies.

The Patrol Mountain climb is always a delight ---- 2,900 feet are gained and lost over 11.5 miles of steep trail.  To reach the lookout one must wade Straight Creek, which seems unreasonably icy.  The wildflowers were out of control and added much to the hike.

I figure I've done the peak at least 40 times, and have never been disappointed by the visits with Samsara and the views from the top, a 360 degree sensation.