Cherry Peak - Montana Mountain Project

Heading towards Penrose

It turns out there are a lot of mountains in Western Montana. It's easy to drive down I-90, highway 200, or highway 93 and only think about the mountains you can see and not consider the spatial relationship with the rest of state. I can't tell you how long it took before I came to think of the Missions as the land mass that keeps the Swan Valley from being the Flathead Valley, or the Sapphires as the demarcating line between the Bitterroot Valley and the Flint Creek Valley.

One range I learned about late in the game is the Coeur d'Alene Mountains. Running East/West, this range keeps the St. Regis River from flowing into the Clark Fork River until the resort town of St. Regis where the two rivers merge and turn north and then back west. When driving west on I-90 the CC Divide is on the right side of the road with steep forested slopes. Just on the other side of those slopes is Thompson Falls, Noxon Reservoir, and Plains. Somewhere in between is Cherry Peak and a trail full of downfall.

On Greenwood Hill

Cherry Peak is in the middle of the 59 square mile Cherry Peak Roadless Area. Established in 1972, the designation caused the cessation of road use and prevented more roads from being built. Roadless Areas have been effective ways to maintain natural resources (timber and wildlife) and recreational opportunities in wild areas that have not been designated Wilderness Areas, but meet minimum requirements for official Wilderness designation. If you want to go down the rabbit hole of roadless areas and their RARE (Roadless Area Review and Evaluation) scores and studies, the Cherry Peak area was initially inventoried under RARE No. 213. The RARE inventory breaks down this area based on timber availability, vegetation type, large mammal diversity, and recreation uses. In 1972 the Cherry Peak Roadless Area was found to have light recreational use except for during hunting season and I don't think much has changed.

The trail we used to access the ridgeline had not been cleared in a few years so we spent the first few miles battling deadfall that all but obscured the trail. Perhaps because of the deadfall, or perhaps because of an old fire, the standing tree cover was thin. This allowed us to see a good distance along the ground, despite being in tree cover.

Whenever I'm in terrain like this I am positive I am going to see a bear or wolf or something cool. It doesn't actually make any sense, but my thinking goes "I can see farther so all the animals must be hanging out here so I can see them." I fall into this trap in meadows, burn areas, and high alpine areas. This day though it actually worked! As Nate handled the downfall like a pro-steeplechaser and bounded out of sight, Sara and I stopped to catch our breath and looked downhill. A hundred yards down slope I glimpsed movement and saw the back end of a sow and cub dashing down towards as low creek. Bears handle the downed trees much better than we did!

Soon we started hiking through patchy snow and then deep snow. Fortunately it was hardpacked and still early so we stayed on top with minimal postholing. We reached the CC Divide Trail, now fully under snow, and turned west to follow that to Greenwood Hill.

Sara working through the burn

The CC Divide is a low ridgeline that divides the Coeur d'Alene Mountains from the Cabinets (hence CC Divide). Along the top of the ridge is a little-known gem of a trail maintained mostly by moto users. With high elevation road access it makes for a great undulating trail with occasional spectacular views of the surrounding mountains. We emerged on to the trail at one of the higher elevation points and were able to clearly see Penrose Peak and Cherry Peak stretched out before us.

At Greenwood Hill we turned off the CC Divide Trail and worked north towards Penrose. According to the 1972 RARE inventory, Penrose is actually higher than Cherry Peak, but current maps show Cherry as higher. We summitted both just to be safe.

Nate working towards Cherry Peak

On the top of Penrose Peak are the foundations of a fire lookout tower. Erected in 1930, the lookout was a 14x14 wooden box that sat atop rock foundations. This style lookout (L-4) could also sit flat on the ground, or be erected on top of a tower up to 100' high. The foundation on the top of Penrose is actually still in decent shape and is a solid 5' high box.

From the top of Penrose it was another couple miles of cross country travel to the top of Cherry Peak. We traversed through the 2003 Cherry Peak fire on the south slopes to avoid the rockiest points of the ridge, but otherwise tried to stay on the top of the ridge as we moved west to Cherry Peak. Unlike Penrose, Cherry Peak is very rounded on top and the summit took a bit of "is this spot higher? No, over here, no there!" to find the true high point.

From the top we enjoyed incredible views on a bluebird day. At the time I didn't have much experience this far west in Montana and spent a few minutes randomly guessing at the names of peaks and ranges from befuddled map recall. I doubt I got any right. Maybe I just need to go back to double check?

On top of Cherry Peak

We retraced our steps on the way down, bypassed Penrose Peak, glissaded a couple snowfields, skipped over the now melting mountain lion prints on the CC Divide Trail, and almost made it out of the downfall without incident. But like any early season adventure walking on loose rocks and logs takes some re-learning and I didn't learn quick enough. A snapped branch lead to deep gouges in my shin and calf that didn't stop oozing for eight hours. Despite vigorously cleaning the wound it took much longer to heal than normal for me and even forced me to shorten and cancel a few runs with swelling over the next few days. A few weeks later (gross part) a piece of stick pushed its way back out of the wound. Once the stick was out everything quickly closed and healed. Now some slight scarring is a reminder for me to watch my step on logs and rocks, especially early season! (and also, actually clean out wounds)