Friday, July 10th - Choteau

July 10, 2009

I was up bright and early, packed up and then watched “Tour” coverage with Ralph while I tried to work on my blog.  Then I left and drove out to Cave Mountain campground to set up my camp for the night.

Cave Mountain Campground - Rocky Mountain Front


West fork of the Teton River

Pond Near the Campground

The campground is way back into the hills/mountains along the front,  remote and pretty.

The "Old North Trail" ran along these mountains.  I'm very intrigued by it and would love to see evidence. Unfortunately, most of the places they have physical signs of it are on private land.



North of Choteau is the site of an old Indian Agency that Ralph's wife has studied very intensely.



Here is the site:



I reorganized the car (again) and hung out and read for a while (I haven’t had much time to do that).  Then I came into town, Choteau, and it took a good 40 min. to drive in.

Here's where we hiked yesterday, the ridge on the right (Ear Mountain is on the left):



Closer view of Metis Ridge:



 I couldn’t get a cell phone signal anywhere (this is the only town I ever have trouble in) and finally gave up and started asking around for a pay phone, after driving around looking in vain.  The lady at the info. building (nice dinosaur and local history display) sent me to the Exxon station.  The gas station owner said they no longer have one and offered to let me use his cell phone but I didn’t want to do that since it wasn’t going to be a quick call (the kids) so he told me to go to the pavilion in the county park.  I went to the pavilion and was told there no longer is one there and no one knew of any in town but one lady insisted I use her cell phone when her husband got back.  They were getting ready for a family reunion. We chatted and they told me a little of the family history and then the phone arrived so I called home briefly.   I thanked her profusely and we chatted some more and as I was going to leave they invited me to stay and “reune” (reunion) with them and they were serious.  I thought about it…it could be really interesting!  But I really needed to get this updated and want to get back to camp for a fire.  Another thing I love about small towns…inviting a stranger to a family reunion!  I also would like to know why so many people over 60 call me “honey”.  Do I look really young for my age?  I didn’t think so but this has been happening a lot.  It makes me feel like a kid. I should be happy about that I guess!

I’m now at the Elk Country Grill in Choteau because they have WIFI (but no pay phone) after using the library’s WIFI for a while.  Every 10 minutes they have a bugling elk playing.  You can also bring the giant, stuffed moose to your table with you if you’d like (I didn’t).
© 2009 Tara Morrison

Thursday July 9th - Metis Ridge hike

Ralph and I were on the trail around 8 a.m.  Our destination was an officially unnamed ridge near  Ear Mountain, one of the landmarks on the rocky mountain front - it used to be a vision quest site.  Ralph and Nancy are trying to get the ridge named Metis Ridge after the people who lived in the area.  Our starting elevation was about 5250 ft.

We parked on the road since it was a loop hike and we wanted the truck there when we finished hiking (better to hike the extra road mile at the beginning instead of at the end).  We walked down the road the road for a while, then had to cross a river (south fork of the Teton).

We hiked in the forest at first for a mile or maybe a little more,  and there was a LOT of scat on the trail…at least half of it was wolf, some very fresh; some probably bobcat and we also saw what I’m pretty sure was a bobcat track in the mud.  Eventually we came out into a beautiful valley and stopped for a break.

We thought we saw an old cabin site, some rocks that didn’t look natural but once we made our way over there, it looked like they were naturally there.

Then we started heading up, mostly using game trails.  It was pretty steep at times. Our first goal was a saddle between two ridges.  We made it there and had some great views but there were more to come! 

We worked our way down and around one ridge to Metis.  Then it was a LOT of uphill.  Great leg workout!

One of the coolest things about the day was the discovery of a collapsed cave.  First we just saw a big hole in the mountain.

Then we saw the stalactite and flowstone.

 It was amazing, to see something like that near the top of a mountain!  It made a nice rest break too.  After exploring that for a while we continued asceding to the top of the ridge.

Ralph lunching on the summit looking east with the plains in the background.

Looking up at Ear Mountain. Next time I'm going up there!

Me at the summit of Metis Ridge - the view is to the North

Looking West from the summit of Metis Ridge

This is looking north along the ridge (looking at it now I think "YIKES!").

What spectacular views!  Even though it was cloudy and hazy, we could see across the plains to the Big Belts which are SE of Great Falls, MANY miles away; we could see peaks in the middle of the Bob Marshall Wilderness and far to the north, possibly a few very small, faint peaks that may be in Glacier.  Ralph said on really clear days you can see the Bear's Paw Mountains from there and they must be a few hundred miles away, by Havre.  This is where I ran out of adjectives to describe the beauty and the views…it was incredible!  I didn’t go up and look over the edge like Ralph did but I got pretty close…for me anyway.  The elevation at the top was about 8400 feet so we had a 3000 foot elevation gain.    Ralph was very happy the weather cooperated and this route worked...he had been to Metis Ridge via the route we took down, and he'd been up the first valley to the high saddle, but he had never done this as a loop hike.

We then started a long, long descent through talus and scree..very slow going to make sure you weren’t stepping on rocks that were going to roll, you just have to be very careful where you put your feet.

I discovered there are a lot of fairly large, creepy black spiders up there...and very tiny RED ones.

Looking back up at where we'd been.


Once we finished the long time desceding the rocks it was time to bushwhack down  a valley with no trail except game trails.    That is slow going but there was a beautiful waterfall at the end.   It can be pretty hard to find your way through at times, the brush/trees are pretty thick in there.

I learned a new plant...this is a Miner's Candle. It's a triannual...it comes up 3 years and the third year it has a spike flower that goes up...then it dies.  We also saw a plethora of Lady's Slippers.

After some tough bushwhacking we crossed the river again and were done. It was a long day, on the trail at about 8 and out around 6:30, but it was a fabulous hike – so much fun and so beautiful!  Thanks again, Ralph, for a great, adventurous day!  Wildlife sightings of the day:  not many…one sheep and a few snoeshoe hares.  Some bear sign, some wolf sign but unfortunately no bear or wolf sightings.  Maybe next time...I've only begun to explore the Rocky Mountain Front!
© 2009 Tara Morrison