This time around was different. Previous years I’d settled right into a tent close to the vehicle in the point of view below Richmond Peak, a timbered ridge towards the north and east of Seeley Lake, Montana. Repeatedly I’d loved the awesome look at the mighty wall of mountain ridge that rose up in the canyon below me, towering total surroundings – the regal Montana peak of Sunday Mountain. In the Richmond Peak standpoint the face area from the peak, comprised of bare slide zones, having a couple of side rails of trees and brush, made an appearance to increase almost upright in the valley floor below. It wasn’t a mountain wall which i would be prepared to yield a trail, a little of the cliffhanger path that will result in the summit.
Awakening that ‘life was imple’ in August though, again in the Richmond Peak point of view, following a quick breakfast, I put my pack on my small back. Then i hit the way in the side of Richmond Peak over the canyon from Sunday Mountain. On the previous hike in the region I’d found an unmarked trail that departed the planned trail/abandoned logging road leading in the side of Richmond Peak. The unmarked trail entered the saddle in which the canyon rose to satisfy the ridge, and made an appearance for connecting using the Sunday Mountain face, after which mind upwards – in a sharp incline. I wasnt certain in which the trail would lead, however it sure gave the look of supplying a potential access route to the peak of Sunday Mountain.
With obvious blue skies of the incredible Montana August day, the climb ahead would be a awesome one because the sun during the day ended up being to the east behind the Sunday Mountain ridge. No doubt about this, it was also bear country – Grizzly bear country. The first distance about this unmarked trail brought off through dense, overgrown brush because it brought over the saddle. Selection place to allow them to be chilling out compared to the dense brush I had been working all things in.
This type of huge relief to really make it beyond the dense brush, without any bear tales to create home about. Out in to the open I had been around the lower flanks of the mountain I’d dreamed of dealing with for a long time. As noted, the way immediately required a clear, crisp turn, upward inside a steep climb. Then, veering off and away to its northern border over the face, a rather leveler trek ensued because it tilted upward over the face through wonderful fields of bear-grass combined with an array of flowers inside a rainbow of colours. It had been almost beyond belief – trekking through chest high fields of flowers around the trail to Sunday Mountain.
The way brought across two or three avalanche draws full of bear-grass, then bending back, needing scrambling up rock ledges, and again leading off over the draws. With another hour of scrambling the steep path, as it turned out I discovered myself dealing with a higher mountain field area apparently the place to find a gang of mountain sheep. Me beat faster when i recognized this high field was hidden in underneath among the summit coves outcroppings. Because of the climb to that particular point, like me could beat considerably faster.