Loneman Divide

Along Loneman Divide in western Montana’s Cabinet Mountains.

On the second day of summer…

Soon after this morning began a friend and I embarked on an effort to find the TeePee Creek trail, which is an old trail, now abandoned, that goes up from Weeksville Creek toward Big Hole lookout. It would be a long, steep climb if we found it. After at the first half mile there was a creek crossing but with the high runoff from snow melt, crossing just wasn’t possible. Oh well!

For several years now I’ve wanted to see what Big Hole lookout was like in winter and of course it’s not approachable in winter conditions except perhaps in a small window in late fall and another in late spring, and since plan “A” didn’t work out, hiking the usual trail to Big Hole, trail 368, was a welcome plan”B”.

The road to the trail head became drivable about a week ago and I made an attempt then at the trail, turning back after a short distance because of deep snow. (The trail to the lookout covers 2.7 miles and climbs 1,400 feet in that distance.)

Today, as we approached the end of the first mile, we could hear loud claps of thunder coming from the west and very dark clouds began sweeping over us from the south accompanied with light rain. And then we hit the snow level. This is what it looked like to the south:

We were equipped for the rain and the thunder died away (the ridge that the trail follows is definitely not a good place to be in a lightning storm) and so we continued on the next mile and a half of trail walking on four to six feet of densely packed snow until we reached a saddle on the ridge just below the lookout, a very good place from which to photograph it.

Even though the sky was still very dark and there was a little rain falling, I was happy to finally get to see the old lookout in a winter setting.

Soon after these photos were taken the storm reached us from the south, bringing with it a couple minutes of heavy sleet followed by more rain, but as we turned to head back down the clouds moved off to the north as quickly as they came, the rain stopped, and suddenly there was clear, sunny sky over head and the scene at the lookout completely changed. I think we saw the best of two worlds.

(The lookout photos were taken from the top of a 20 foot deep snow bank just on the edge of the big hole below the lookout.)

Weeksville

This photo was taken last Saturday facing west across the Weeksville Creek canyon in the Cabinet Mountains. The snowy ridge at the skyline is the east slope of Big Hole mountain and the beginning of KooKooSint Ridge. Country like this is a vital part of our western watershed and is home to a large number of wildlife species, such as black bear, elk, moose, big horn sheep, mule deer, whitetail deer, cougar, wild turkey, coyote, fox, bobcat and grouse, as well as all kinds of smaller animals, birds, insects and reptiles and a large diversity of plant life. I am very thankful that it’s still here and grateful that I am able to venture out into the middle of it.

High ridge butterfly

Last fall while hunting not far from here my son and I caught just a glimpse of a very large mule deer buck. Now that he is growing his new set of antlers we thought that perhaps we might be able to find the ones he shed in about January and so we hiked up to the high ridge where he makes his home. No luck finding the antlers, but just being on that steep and beautiful ridge that is covered with tall grass and flowers was worth all of the effort it took to get up there; and this butterfly was making it his home too:

Johnson’s Hairstreak ~ Callophrys johnsoni

Mount Headley

This photo was taken from the top of Mount Headley in the Cube Iron – Silcox roadless area in the Cabinet Mountains on July 12, 2010 after hiking there on USFS trail 528 from Vermillion Pass.

Late Autumn in the Cabinets

About an hour after daylight this morning along Little Thompson River in the Cabinet Mountains. Fall… Winter…