Fairy Lake - summer 2009

This is really more of a drive than a hike, but an exciting drive none-the-less. I headed up here to explore a part of the mountains, I'd really never seen before. The lake sits at the base of Sacajawea in the Bridgers. There's a campground near by and a short loop trail along the lake. It's a peaceful area with nice views all around. The road is quite bumpy but my civic was still able to handle it. No fairies were found.

Sacajawea

Fairy Lake

Mount Blackmore - Summer 2009

Mount Blackmore is probably my favorite hike I've done yet in the Bozeman area. With it's high elevation, it definitely wasn't an easy one for me. I headed out on this adventure with Nate and Gina. You can reach this peak a couple of different ways. We chose to start at the Hyalite Reservoir and head up the Blackmore trail. It's a beautiful route, starting first in the trees passing the slightly swampy Blackmore Lake and then begins to climb, gaining 3,400ft in 5 miles. With a summit of 10,154ft, I was starting to feel the affects of thinner air. Once on top the views of the surrounding peaks and valleys are stunning.

Great views to be had

Views from the pass just below the summit

Summit cairne

Me at the pass

Nate up on some lingering snow

Two ways down

One last view

Lava Lake - Summer 2009

A group of us headed out for a relatively short but beautiful summer hike, destination Lava Lake. The trail is 6 miles round trip and gains about 1,600 ft. It's pretty popular on a summer day so you definitely won't have it to yourself, but there's plenty of room to spread out and explore.

Lava Lake

Humbug Spires - spring 2009

The Humbug Spires is a wilderness area filled with large granite spires off of highway 15. It doesn't hold snow like many parts of Montana making it a great spring destination. With a warm sunny day predicted, Derrick and I decided to go check it out.

We entered via the Moose Creek Trailhead. It's about 6 miles round trip to get into the main spire area. There's plenty of places to just explore. We spent several hours just climbing our way up the different rock slabs enjoying the area.

Derrick up on one of the spires

One of the larger granite spires

Spanish Creek Snowshoe

The Spanish Peaks are a sub range of the Madison Range in Southwest Montana. One of the main entrances to the Spanish Peaks is the Spanish Creek trail head accessed by driving on a public road through Ted Turners ranch. There is a large campground and a forest service cabin at the trail head making this is a very popular area in the summer, but in the winter it's pretty quiet. We decided to take advantage of this and plan a little winter getaway. Luckily the cabin doesn't get too many rentals in the winter and we were able to take our pick of weekends. You can drive the road to the trail head until about 4 miles before the cabin. Then it is very easy to follow the rest of the snow covered road to the cabin and other trails.

This was going to be Derricks first backpacking/snowshoeing trip so an easy four miles was about all we were looking for. The nice thing about the cabin is that it has beds and a wood fired stove so we were able to pack pretty light. The road climbs slightly, but at a gradual grade. The weekend we chose turned out to be on the warm side which was nice, but also caused the snow to become a bit slushy. It was fine when we started out in the morning, but as the day warmed up we found ourselves hiking through a slushy mess. Luckily the snow on the road wasn't too deep so we were able to manage.

Breaking Trail

The hike in was nice. It is very open giving you beautiful views of the mountains looming in the distance. We only saw a couple of ski tracks, no people. On the way in and as we neared the camping area we were breaking fresh trail. It was amazingly quiet. The cabin was nice. It stayed pretty warm once we got the stove going. It was a real treat to be able to cook a meal with real dishes and not on a camping stove. Many people had left behind little additions (candles, cards, whiskey) that made the cabin very homey.

Looking out at the Spanish Peaks

Approaching Spanish Creek

The one downfall of the night was discovering my newer shoes had given me some nickle sized blisters on the back of my heels. Unfortunately my feet had gotten wet and cold in the slush and I hadn't realized how bad it was getting until I stopped. I did my best to bandage my wounds the next morning, but needless to say the hike out was slow going. Every step seemed to hurt my now raw sores. Eventually the pain subsided but we took almost twice as long going back to the car as we did coming in. Minus the blisters, it was a nice weekend. Really good to get out after such a long cold winter.

Our little home for the night

To get to the cabin: Head south on Highway 191 from Bozeman. Turn right on the Spanish Creek Rd (about 13 miles after Four Corners). Take the gravel road for about 5.5 miles. At the end of the gravel you hit a paved road going south. This is where the snow usually begins.

Map of the Hike

A Frozen Grotto Falls

Grotto falls is the first of a series of waterfalls along the Hyalite Mountain trail. They're quite popular in the summer, but are possibly more spectacular in the winter. Only 2.5 miles round trip, this is an easy snowshoe. When winter temperatures are cold enough the falls freeze creating a cove like affect. You can cross the creek on a large downed tree and explore the frozen grotto.

Behind the ice

Hanging out in the grotto