Stony Mountain Roadless Area

Skalkaho gets its name from the area in Salish meaning ‘many trails’.  Unrelated to the name, the summit does have several trails converging near its summit.  I chose the trail coming from the west off FS road #364.  This trail has many views of other SOTA summits and to the west the much higher elevation Bitterroot Range. 

The trail is well defined and approaches within ¼ mile of the summit, an easy off-trail scramble. 

Four curious mule deer greeted me near the summit and hung around.  Interested in CW, I thought?  

Palisade Mountain is a popular hike east of Corvallis, MT. The trail system is well maintained to within 500’ of the summit. The summit is a large talus rock pile with a several oddly-located whitebark pine trees.  Evidence of the 1930s lookout still exist as some rock work and old trails in the talus. The main trail does not go to the summit though a semi-improved travel way in the talus on the west side does. Excellent views exist from the summit including a large expanse of the Stony Mountain Roadless Area. 

Dome Shaped Mountain is a scenic and lightly traveled trail near Hamilton Montana. Much of the hike overlooks a large portion of the Stony Mountain Roadless Area. Alpine larch dominate the summit with brilliant yellow fall color in early October contrasting with green whitebark pine. Most of the trail system is in unburned forest with large wildfire burned areas to the east. Two unsigned trail junctions are worthy to note as they could be easily missed on the return trip.  See the directions narrative.