Cleveland Mountain Summit

Welcome Creek Wilderness, Lolo National Forrest, Montana

Took a long day hike through the Sapphire Mountains Welcome Creek Wilderness to the relatively low 7,327 foot summit of Cleveland Mountain.  While one of the smallest wilderness areas in Montana, it also comes with no crowds!  The lack of people might be on account of the really rocky trails...these are real ankle killers and they go on for miles.

5 miles in the hike I came across an old miners log cabin.  It is called the Carron Cabin.  Still has several old shovel heads and some pots and pans on the inside.  The walls are still intact but the pole roof has caved in on it.  While the valley doesn't get a lot of sun throughout the day, the builder did pick a spot with the morning sun shining brightly on the front door.

The old Carron Cabin

With all the leaves off many of the bushes, you can find some interesting things like this Hornets nest right beside the trail.  I wonder how many passed by it and never knew it was there.  Fortunately with temps hovering right around freezing all day long...no hornets came out to pay their respects to me as I passed by (twice).  If they had I would have picked up my pace...and not taken this photo.

No Explanation Required

It took me a little bit to find the summit survey benchmark because the trail petered out near the summit and it was also lost in lots of blowdowns of old fire destroyed trees.  Once I did it was  I back down the trail towards my truck.  I have a guidebook that shows it is only 5 miles from the trailhead to the summit.  The GPS tells a different story.  I think they have the wrong peak in mind in the guidebook because the elevation is also off by over 2,000 feet.  At least the directions to the trailhead were correct.

Cleveland Mountain Benchmark

The last bit of trail (and first bit as well) crosses over the famous Rock Creek.  I had planned on getting some fly fishing in but the sun was about to set and I still had an hours drive ahead to get back home.  The fish will still be there when I return.  Besides I should be fishing in the Blackfoot river an hour or two for each of the next few days.  This is why we live here.

Rock Creek

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