06/21/14 Unnamed 6134 and Unnamed 5865 #48 and #49

Nice trail and a nice day

On the 21st of June I went out into the Salish Mountains with Ben, Brian, Morgan, Chris, and Brian's dog, Clyde, and Chris' dogs, Althea and Barlow.  It was quite a group and probably the largest group I had been on for this project.  We drove into the Salish Mountains and found the unmarked trailhead.  Our main objective was to climb Elk Mountain and I had done some research and found that there were three other ranked summits along the way.  We set out to climb Elk and I figured if we had any extra energy we could climb any of the other three on the way back.

Approaching Unnamed 6134

The day was nice and sunny and it was nice to be hiking with many friends.  Despite the Salish Mountains being lower and less dramatic, we found the hike to be quite lovely and enjoyable.  The grass was green and there were many flowers blooming.  We climbed and descended through a couple saddles that could be turning off points for the other ranked peaks and I made note of the spots as we hiked through old burns and sporadic green trees.  After some time we decided to stop and take a nice break in the shade and grass where we had great views over to the Cabinet Wilderness and some of the snowy summits there.

Brian, Chris, and Morgan enjoying the summit

Shortly after the break we came to a junction with a sign.  We were shocked to see that Elk Mountain was still six miles away.  We had probably come four miles and we weren't sure any of us was ready for a 20-mile day, especially the dogs.  We found the trail we could take the next time we wanted to climb Elk.  We carried on, saying we would see how we felt, but I don't think anyone thought we would make it to Elk.  I told everyone that not too far away we could break off the trail and climb one of the ranked and unnamed summits and make that our new destination.

Althea enjoying the views

When we made it to the saddle we needed we left the trail and climbed easily to the top of Unnamed 6134.  It was open up top and we had great views to the Cabinets and to Glacier.  We could also see Elk Mountain and saw that it was still quite a ways from where we were.  This solidified our decision to turn back at this point.  We enjoyed our time up top and sat and ate and relaxed.

When we decided to leave we hiked back to the trail and followed it back toward the car.  At the junction we contemplated sending Chris with his dogs to the other trailhead to be picked up as Barlow is getting older and Althea was recovering from surgery over the winter.  After some talking about it he decided they would be fine and we carried on.

Heading back

At the last saddle Brian, Morgan, and I cut off the trail and headed toward Unnamed 5865.  Ben was so far ahead of us and Chris stayed with his dogs--he had to carry Barlow just a little bit at the end.  Brian, Morgan, and I made our way through the grass and boulders up to the summit of the unnamed peak.  It was neat going up it as we knew not too many people had ever gone up there.  It was rather small and we were up top quickly.  Not wanting to keep the others waiting we stayed a short time and headed off the summit on a different ridge that would take us back to the trail closer to the car.

After surprising a couple of deer we eventually found our way back to the trail and easily followed it back to the car.  We were all tired as the day turned out to be longer than we had anticipated.  It was a nice day to get up a couple of obscure peaks in an obscure Montana mountain range.

Elevation gain:  2630'     Total gain:  77,455'