I’ve been vacationing in Western Montana this summer, visiting with friends who have a homestead near the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness, south of Glacial National Park. They’re a family of hardcore hikers, too, and they’ve been taking me on their favorite hikes. It’s been a nice break from the humidity of New Hampshire and Vermont, with gorgeous mountains, alpine lakes, and higher elevations than I have back home. There’s no doubt that I’ll visit this area again in the future to climb more mountains and fly fish in alpine lakes.
Engle Peak is a 7497-foot mountain with awesome 360-degree views from the summit. While it’s one of the higher peaks in the area, the trailhead for the Engle Peak Trail begins at about 4800′ and climbs via switchbacks making it a reasonable moderate route to hike. Getting to the trailhead is another story, requiring a 1 hour/7 mile drive on a rocky forest service road that hugs the side of the mountain with 1000’+ drop-offs along the passenger side.
We used several resources to plan this hike, including the Benchmark Maps Montana Road and Recreation Atlas to find the trailhead. It’s invaluable for driving in the area since many of local roads are unpaved and sparsely signed. We also benefitted from the trail descriptions in Trails of the Wild Cabinets (4th ed), co-authored by my friends’ hiking pal Jim Mellon. GaiaGPS and Caltopo do not have complete maps of this hike, so we had to rely on Alltrails for a GPS view of the route. That was a little bit of a surprise, but I’m glad I downloaded a map because parts of the route are obscured by high grass, and having a live map for reference was helpful.
This part of Montana is very arid, so we each carried 2 liters of water and bear spray since this is Grizzly country. I had the foresight to wear long pants on this and all my hikes on this trip to Montana for hiking through overgrown vegetation and tick protection. The Fire Danger Level that day was Very High, which is typical of this time of year but a marked contrast to my regular haunts in New Hampshire and Vermont, where floods are more of a danger than forest fires.
The Engle Peak Trail begins with a steep 1500′ climb 1.5 miles out of the starting gate as you climb up to the ridgeline leading to Engle Peak. The ascent is mitigated by switchbacks and a tread largely free of roots and rocks, so we motored up the side of the ridge, getting the hardest part of the hike out of the way early.
From there, the forest opens up and is superseded by a mile or so of open grass and burnt trees, the result of past fires, probably caused by lightning hitting the peak. It’s sobering stuff, but it’s a natural process that occurs without human intervention.
Large swaths of open talus soon replaced the high grass. At first sight, I was concerned we’d have to traverse these areas without trail markers since this entire route was unmarked and unblazed. But a well-defined pathway of fitted stones was constructed through it that was easy to follow and switched back to the summit. It was a wonderful example of using local materials to construct a trail that blends into the landscape.
We soon arrived at the summit cairn and had a relaxing lunch while surveying the peaks and lakes surrounding it. I’ve been mesmerized by the scale of the mountains here and the beauty of the alpine lakes that punctuate the valleys between them. While I look forward to returning east to hike in New Hampshire and Vermont this summer and autumn, I know I’ll return to Montana again.
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