Ruby BM - Montana Mountain Project

Sara approaching the summit of Ruby BM.

Friday nights are for planning. We often find ourselves sitting around the table looking at maps and weather reports trying to plan where to go in the most ideal conditions. In August we found ourselves taking a gamble on the Ruby Mountains in southwestern Montana in the hopes of finding the most pure air in the state. We gambled wrong, but still had a wonderful day up high.

The Ruby Mountains lie southwest of the Tobacco Root Mountains near Sheridan and are surrounded by a mess of rivers. The Ruby River, Beaverhead River, and Big Hole River all swirl and merge in the valleys around the Ruby Mountains.

Starting up Laurin Canyon

We approached from the east side of the range, south of Sheridan, where the mountains rise rather abruptly from the alluvial ranch lands below. The northern section of the range, which contains the unnamed high point (Ruby BM), trends towards the steep and formidable side, where the southern end of the range is more rolling and friendly. Overall the range is dry, however, with only a few springs running.

After passing through Sheridan and Laurin, we turned West and drove straight at the range. Behind us lay Alder Gulch and Virginia City. It was here that William Fairweather stumbled on a large gold deposit in 1863 kicking off a gold rush to the area that resulted in $10,000,000 in gold being pulled out of the ground during the first year of mining. Ultimately Alder Gulch became the largest gold placer deposit ever discovered and the ensuing population boom led to Virginia City becoming the second Montana Territorial Capital in 1864.

We left the gold dust in our review mirror as the Ruby's grew in our windshield. We crossed through a gate onto BLM public land (BLM lands make up 12% of the country) and drove a few more miles on a ranch road before parking in the bottom of Porier Canyon.

Meadow in Laurin Canyon

Instead of heading straight up Porier, however, we trekked across North, paralleling the Ruby Range to the mouth of Laurin Canyon. There we left the arid ranch lands behind and began climbing up the shady canyon bottom.
Most of the northern portion of the Rubies are quite dry, but Laurin Canyon does have a couple springs running year round. Since we had Zeno, our dog, with us, we opted to go up the canyon with water then come down Porier, which is dry. We soon found ourselves hopping back and forth across a muddy bottom as a trickle of water flowed beneath our feet. Swarms of gnats and flies buzzed around incessantly in the shady, still canyon, but above the spring they disappeared with the water.

Remnants of mining activity in Laurin Canyon

A mile or two up the canyon we reached an open meadow that marked a fork in the canyon. The north fork led to the base of Laurin Peak, which appears to be the second highest point in the range, but we took the south fork towards the cirque below Ruby BM. Unfortunately the south fork was also the option with a large swath of downfall trees.

Working off our trusty Peakbagging Montana guidebook, we knew we wanted to head up the slope on our left after a half mile or so, but because of the downfall we chose to climb earlier. Like many of the ranges we have explored in South and Central Montana, what seems like a small, un-impressive mountain range can get real very quickly. We had been climbing up the bottom of the canyon, but the majority of our 3,000' of climbing for the day came in the mile from the valley floor to the summit. We found ourselves holding on to trees and using our hands multiple times just to keep moving forward.

Shoulder to the summit with the Tobacco Roots behind.

Eventually we topped out on a shoulder that led straight to the summit. At this point we were also able to see that the smoke we were trying to avoid in Missoula had followed us and the nearby Tobacco Roots were smudges on the horizon.

The climb along the shoulder was much friendlier than the initial push out of the canyon and we quickly found ourselves on the top of the Ruby Mountains. Looking around it became very clear that the northern section of the range (where we were standing) was clearly the rugged "mountainous" side of the Rubies while the southern end diminished in size to a series of large rolling ranchland hills. The forested area we had climbed through on the Northeast side of the peak gave way to open slopes on the exposed Southwestern sides of the mountain. And the still air from the canyon bottom did not exist in the gusty higher elevations. It's amazing what an hour of hiking and 3,000 feet of elevation can do to change your surroundings.

Summit of the Ruby Mountains

 Instead of returning down Laurin Canyon we hiked South around the rim of Porier Canyon to until we reached a drainage that ran steeply, but cleanly down into the canyon. After a little bit of pine needle skiing we reached an old mining track that took us gently the rest of the way down.

Although dry, Porier Canyon is a much more pleasant walk than Laurin Canyon. There is plenty of old mining evidence for history buffs, big fans of rock creating narrow sections for geology nerds, and a variety of flowers, berries, and grasses for biologists. A few of the narrows looked like they had been used as natural corals for livestock over the years by using the steep walls of the canyon for 95% of the fencing.

Eventually the steep walls and mountain feel of the canyon gave way to the arid plains below and we were bake in high desert. The windshield of our Subaru winked in the smoky sun as we drew closer. Instead of camping in the smoke we had hoped to avoid, we drove back to Missoula where the air had cleared out in our absence. Although we didn't avoid the smoke, we were able to explore some in the Rubies and a day in the mountains is (almost) always worth it.

Summit Selfie

Heading south around Porier Canyon 

Bottom of Porier Canyon