Montana Hiking

When my wife and I lived in Anaconda, Montana, hiking was a normal part of our life. Even when we couldn't get out for a longer hike, we could always walk four blocks to the edge of town and start walking up the hill, into the mountains. I don't think we could have exhausted the new hiking opportunities in the area in four years, let alone the four short months we were there.

Glacier National Park is covered on its own page, and it is, in our opinion, just about the most beautiful place in the world to go hiking or backpacking. When you want awesome mountains all to yourself, however, you can find them all over Montana. Public lands, such as national forests and BLM (Bureau Of Land Management) lands make up a good chunk of the western half of the state (over 36 million acres), and are wide open to use without permits or crowds.

A Little Montana Hiking Trip

My wife Ana and I drove ten minutes out of town, and found the dirt road that goes up to Storm Lake. We had been up to the lake a month before, shortly after moving to Anaconda. The road was pretty hard on the car, but we couldn't resist returning. This time we were bringing backpacks, so we could hike up to the tundra and stay the night.

When we arrived at the lake, there were a couple other cars, but nobody in sight. The lake was sparkling in the sun, and the mountains of the Anaconda-Pintler range rose up all around it. It was quiet, and cooler here at 8,000 feet. We put on our packs and started down the trail around the west side of the lake. Twenty minutes later we were past the lake, and the trail steepened.

In Montana Hiking Is Done With Guns

An hour of zig-zagging up the mountainside, and we finally met another hiker. We stopped to talk briefly, and noticed the handgun on his belt. This seems to be common in Montana. We have seen guns on the hiking trails and in the bars, and the bank tellers don't even blink when customers walk in wearing guns (probably have their own). We didn't think to ask the hiker why he had one.

We didn't find out until later that there are grizzlies in the area here at times, something that some "experts," have denied. At least we had our freon horn to blast if we met a bear, but then maybe that would just get the bear angry.

Hiking And Climbing

The trees end just before Storm Lake Pass, where Ana waited patiently while I ran the five-minutes-that-became-twenty up to the peak of Mount Tiny, not quite 10,000- feet high. I suppose it is small compared to some of the surrounding mountains, but it still seems almost rude to give a beautiful mountain a name like that.

Later, up past goat meadow, Ana waited again while I scrambled up the rocks to the top of Kurt Peak (also a foot or two below 10,000 feet). I couldn't find the route back down on the north side where I came up, so I went back up part-way, then down the west side and back north to the grassy slope where Ana was waiting.

Months later we realized how foolish it was to leave Ana alone. Montana has some dangerous animals. About the time we were moving, two teenage boys were attacked by a mountain lion on the hillside just behind town. The fourteen-year-old fired his gun to scare it off. It is worth noting that both boys were probably larger than my gun less wife. Fortunately, we didn't meet any bears or cougars on this hiking trip, but Ana had other things to worry about.

In Montana Hiking With Aliens

"I hear voices," she told me when we were in the tent. It was her first time camping on the tundra, and in such an isolated place. I assured her that there was nobody within ten miles of us, but then she was worried about aliens landing in the meadow. Hey, it would make a good landing site. Meanwhile, the wind was blowing strong, threatening to shred the tent all night, and sounding like the whispers or screams of ghosts. By morning the wind finally relented, but it was well below freezing. It was time to get Ana home.

Despite the cold that she hates so much, Ana couldn't help but stop to take in the view as we crossed the high meadows on our way home. Mountains, gray with rock, green with grass and flowers, and painted with white patches of snow, were everywhere we looked. Lakes sat in the valleys below, unvisited for weeks at a time. We will be back there again, I think, although perhaps with bear spray and alien repellent.

The Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness

Forty-five miles of the Continental Divide Trail go through the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness. The other trails in the wilderness are never heavily used, and you can easily find mountains and whole valleys where you'll be the only human residents for as long as you stay. It is difficult to get much information on the area, but you can read a bit more about it at Wilderness.net.

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