Baldy Mountain (7/14/10)

On the rare chance that the world needs more pictures from Baldy Mountain, I will post a few from a hike there on Wednesday. This time the snow banks are much smaller than a few weeks ago and the lake is clear of ice. The wind at the top though was on the chilly side of refreshing, and a wind breaker felt very good.

A trip just has to be a pleasant one when this trail head greets the visitor:

Despite fairly cloudless skies there was a haze in the air that kept the visibility (in terms of distance) a little low, but I did bring back a few photos from the top.

(Mount Baldy is in the Baldy Mountain Roadless Area of the Cabinet Mountains in the Lolo National Forest of western Montana. One can reach the top by a three mile hike on USFS trail 340 from the trail head at 6,000 feet. The summit is 7,464 feet. There were two fire lookouts built on Baldy, one in 1928 which lasted until 1948. Another was built in the early 60’s but was torn down after just a few years when the jobs that many of the old lookouts did in detecting the start of wildfires were replaced by aircraft using infra-red technology.)