Shady Trail

Turner Mountain in northwest Montana is approximately 22 miles north of Libby on Pipe Creek Road #567.  Turner ski area opened in 1961. It is currently active with a mile long double chairlift with 2100’ of vertical rise. The 1.8-mile vehicle access road is closed in the summer but open to mountain bikes and foot travel. I borrowed an ebike and rode to the summit via the reasonable grade ‘jeep road’.  The ride is 2.68 miles from the chair lift base to the summit, a rise of 1380’. Stops along the way were necessary to view the scenery, think ‘panting rest-stops’.

UPDATE March 2023: W7W/CN-024 has been retired and replaced by Frog Lake Buttes W7O/CN-106 ~ 1/3 mile northeast.

Here's an easy 14 points: snowshoe 3 miles up to Frog Lake Buttes (W7O/CN-024) on New Year's Eve.

The snow is usually already packed down by avid snowmobilers and, in our case this year, we didn't even need snowshoes.

Canuck Peak is a forested summit in far northwestern Montana. The summit is identified only by three summit trails all heading downhill, a sign pointing to American Peak and a recently burned cabin. The trail to Canuck Peak is part of the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail system Congressionally designated in 2009. The one-mile trail portion to Canuck Peak is a well-maintained easy grade. The trail traverses’ dense subalpine forest having periodic good crops of summer huckleberries. 

Kinney Mountain is close to Applegate Lake and many other summits. The road was pretty good all the way to the starting point of the hike. No trail. Hike through the timber. The brush is not too bad. There is enough open space to get most of the way up and back without bushwhacking. Worst is at the very summit, at least where I landed. Thick oak that you have to push through to get to true summit. Might be able to set up below but I wanted to be facing east as much as possible. Good view NW and SE through the timber/brush.

No vehicle access to this peak now. A gate has been added since this write up: http://www.pnwsota.org/blog/k7atn/2019-november-17/peak-2260-or-november-2019

There is no signage at the gate. The gate is a bit up the road from the highway and there is room to turn around or park, but we parked just off the highway.

Three of us did the hike: Eteinne, K7ATN, Guy, NS0TA, and myself.

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.

Summary - Birkenfeld Mountain from the east side is a steep, mostly pathless, ridge bushwhack to a brushy forested summit.   The approach via CG2020, is a logging road with some very steep sections that can also be used to reach Greenleaf Peak.  Drive time to the trailhead was about 90 minutes.

Peak 6100, which I am calling Lemcke Peak, as the only thing near it with a name is Lemcke Spring.