Penrose Peak, Part 5

From the saddle where I spent a cool but comfortable night under an ink-black sky chock full of pure white stars which are ever so much brighter in the high country, there are two routes that may be taken to get to Penrose, and they converge about a mile and a half before the final climb to the peak at another saddle on the ridge at 5,700 feet. The old road takes a slow steady route down to that point while the trail climbs to 6,500 feet, then descends quite rapidly back down 800 feet to meet the road.

The road affords no good views because of the forest cover, but the topographic maps showed that the trail, at its crest, ran along the edge of some very steep country which should have afforded some views. I took the trail. (Incidentally, for those who might be interested, there are two topographic maps that cover this area quite well, the Sunset Peak Quadrangle, Montana, 7.5-Minute Series and the Penrose Peak Quadrangle, Montana. 7.5-Minute series.)

The following photos, with just a few comments, will provide a sample of what it’s like to travel this route.

I know I’m posting a lot of photos and up to and including most of the ones in this post, they haven’t been terribly interesting. Not all of a trip like this is terribly interesting, but that’s part of the whole experience and I have attempted to show that part of it too. In the rest of the posts, on the final climb up to the peak, the trail gets out of and/or above the trees and the views become clearer.

To the southwest of the trail, Montana’s Bitterroot range is visible at the skyline.

Rest stop along the trail. (Actually, that is the trail and an illustration of the value of blaze marks!)

Another look toward the southwest

The peaks, with Penrose on the left are now getting closer. Just past this point the trail becomes tantalizing because it is starting to descend while the peak seems to be growing taller.

Unknown species of flowers along the trail.

Peeking at the peaks.

On the right side of the ridge to the northeast, this view is especially significant to me. The deep Eddy Creek canyon leading down to the Clark Fork River is a major terrain feature which is helpful while navigating in these parts. The canyon up through the mountains on the other side of the valley is the Munson Creek Canyon inside the TeePee – Spring Creek Roadless area in the Cabinet Mountains. Last summer I hiked the entire 6 miles of it from the river level to the 6,900 foot high ridge at the skyline and wrote several posts about the trip.

To the north, with the Cabinets to the far right and the high country of the roadless area center.

Toward the east across what used to be a beautiful section of forest, Baldy Mountain is at the skyline, center. Sadly, however, the brownish cast over large areas of the forest are trees dying from Pine and Fir beetle infestations brought on by the 7 years of drought that we’ve just had.

The last two photos were taken looking into the area of the high peaks and show in the foreground why the topo maps showed very steep ground.

Starting with the photos in the next post I think it will start to become clear why it was worth all of this effort to hike to Penrose Peak.