1 of 7
Donnie Sexton
2 of 7
Donnie Sexton
3 of 7
Donnie Sexton
4 of 7
Donnie Sexton
5 of 7
Donnie Sexton
6 of 7
Donnie Sexton
7 of 7
Donnie Sexton
Story By Mike Harrelson
Montana grows big, wild mountains. Mountains wrought by ancient forces - compressed, bent, and chewed into rugged formations topped with tundra and perennial snowfields. Grizzly bears, wolverines, and golden eagles inhabit their untamed slopes, ablaze with a riot of color layered in red rocks, infused in green forests, and spread across meadows of multi-hued native blooms.
The wild mountains of Montana offer places where people can drive, but many vast pristine landscapes are only accessible by foot. One of most distinctive natural places is Glacier National Park. Its icy lakes, glacier-carved valleys, waterfalls, and craggy alpine wonderlands set it apart. But, Glacier is mirrored across Montana. Its iconic images are reflected in more than 70 other mountain ranges across the state with trails to take the kids or challenge experts.
WHERE WILD LAKES LIE
Chilly sub-alpine lakes dot Glacier’s mountains, many filling in glacial pockets with clear, blue water. A 4.5-mile trail slicing through meadows of flaming paintbrush and pink spirea leads to Iceberg Lake. Those who dare can swim with the bergs even in early September. Others can scan the steep serrated wall arcing around its shore for shaggy mountain goats.
In northwestern Montana, in the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness, a short, steep 2.5-mile trail grunts up switchbacks to Leigh Lake—sparkling with blue water that mimics many of Glacier’s lakes. Beginning in old growth cedars, the trail climbs through tall, white beargrass to reach the lake. Shelves of rock slabs rim the lake, which abuts the vertical west face of Snowshoe Peak where mountain goats prance on ledges.
WHERE GLACIER CARVED VALLEYS SPRAWL
A Glacier National Park trademark, deep scooped out valleys swoop between mountains shooting thousands of feet up into pinnacles. These huge valley troughs, once scoured out by monster ice age glaciers, are filled with long finger-like lakes. From Chief Mountain Customs, the 19-mile Belly River Trail begins in aspen meadowlands, but links Cosley and Glenns Lake in its ascent through the glacier-carved valley to Stoney Indian Pass. The valley culminates in soaring spires and two of Glacier’s tallest peaks—Merritt and Cleveland.
In southwest Montana, in the Bitterroot Mountains, Blodgett Canyon pays tribute to the same forces of ice that shaped Glacier. A massive ice flow carved out a 2,000-foot-deep trench, leaving sheer cliffs and dramatic spires that lure rock climbers. Gray granite precipitous walls hem in the valley floor forest. Hikers can grab a bird’s eye view of the canyon from the overlook trail, and backpackers can wander up its bowels along the 12-mile river trail, a door into the Selway- Bitterroot Wilderness.
WHERE ICY WATERS FALL
Ice and snow deliver waterfalls aplenty in Glacier National Park. One of its tallest, Dixon Falls, plummets 1,500 feet into glacier-fed, turquoise Lake Francis, a location only reached by backpacking. You can enjoy it en route from Goat Haunt to Kintla Lake, a 30-mile trek over Boulder Pass (a remote trail that trots just south of the Canadian border). Lake Francis harbors large rainbow trout for anglers, and hikers camping at Boulder Pass can scramble up Boulder Peak for eagle eye views of Agassiz Glacier clinging to Kintla Peak.
On Montana’s opposite end, in the Gallatin Range, Hyalite Creek plunges through 11 waterfalls in a cliffy canyon full of lava flows and volcanic columns. The 11-mile, multi-use Gallatin National Forest trail diverts with side spurs for waterfall viewing or fishing for arctic grayling. From Hyalite Lake, backpackers can connect with the Gallatin Crest Trail along the Devil’s Backbone to Windy Pass or scramble up Hyalite Peak.
WHERE WILDLIFE WANDER
High alpine wonderlands crown Glacier’s wild landscape. From Two Medicine, an 18-mile loop yields a goat-walk high altitude traverse that connects three windy passes—Dawson, Cutbank, and Pitamakin. Backpacking camps hug lakes at tree line, while the traverse cuts for miles across a rocky alpine bighorn sheep summering range. Only inch-high alpine daisies and pink moss campion dot this elevation, but the views span miles, diving down into the Nyack and flying up the monolith of Rising Wolf Mountain that the trail circles.
Glacier National Park holds sky-scraping peaks, but the Beartooth-Absaroka Wilderness in the south caps Montana’s summits. Starting in bear habitat below tree line, trails ascend to a world of rock and ice where little but lichen grows. For mountaineers ready for the challenge of thunderstorms, winds, altitude and a rough cairn trail in this raw environment, an 11- mile route departs West Rosebud Creek for Froze-to-Death Plateau to see the knife-edged, 12,799-foot Granite Peak, Montana’s highest mountain.
The mountains of Montana hold boundless wild places for adventures by foot. The only way to savor their untamed, rugged beauty is to get out and go.