Mt. Aeneas

Friday, June 1, I hiked on trail 717 up to Mt. Aeneas in the Swan Mountain Range's Jewel Basin outside of Bigfork, MT.

The group consisted of Gary, Joyce, and I. Bill had a project he needed to complete, and as Sue Ann just moved to a new place, we couldn't reach her as her phone wasn't connected yet.

Beside we heard through Bill's wife that Sue Ann didn't want to hike to Mt. Aeneas because of the snow up there. But Gary, Joyce, and I were game - what's a little snow?

While the hike wasn't a long hike, it was a bit of a climb as Mt. Aeneas is one of the higher mountains in the Jewel Basin.

We had an elevation gain of about 1811 ft. Camp Misery is at 5717 ft and Mt. Aeneas is now resurveyed as being 7528 ft.


The trail description lists this as a strenuous hike. So we met at 8:30 am for an early start.

It took an hour to drive to the start of the trail at Camp Misery. Or I should say almost to Camp Misery as the road was snow covered a half mile from Camp Misery.

A lot of snow covered the road to the Camp Misery parking area and beyond. It will be some weeks before the road is snow free.

Gary attempted to drive as far as he could in the snow in his pickup but quickly the truck's wheels started to spin and we were sliding sideways. When on a one lane forest service / logging road that drops off one side, sliding sideways is something you do not want to do.

So Gary backed up, and in a dry, wider (ha! ) part of the road turned around and parked the pickup against the mountainside in the off chance someone else would drive up here and want to pass by. Wouldn't you know it by the time we returned there were two other pickups and a Jeep parked nearby. The Jeep passed Gary's pickup and drove to the next snow free spot and parked having gotten no further than Gary did.

While getting our bags with food and water Gary and I heard a hissing sound. The pickup's rear tire had a leak. We found two pieces of metal in his tire, one of which was leaking air. What to do? Gary moved the pickup so the leak was against the ground and we couldn't hear it anymore. Okay, let's go hike.

Re: first photo. Sure, it doesn't look like much, but try driving past where you see the snow ends and the story is a little different.

A rushing stream popped out of the snow every so often.

We were on the NE side of the ridge line and Gary promised that once we crossed over to the SW side the trail will be free of snow. The SW side would be open and the sun would have melted the snow. Umm... it wasn't quite like that. We did have some open snow free areas, but the trail was mainly snow covered. It think overall 80 to 90 percent of the trail was under snow.

But it was a warm day with temperatures in the Valley in the upper 80s. It may well have been in the 70s where we were. The surface of the snow was soft, but seldom did we break through.

I wore a black t-shirt and black cutoff jeans as I felt it may be cool on high. I brought my flannel shirt along but never used it. Instead I eventually took off my shirt and hiked in just jeans and shoes. It was actually ideal hiking as it was a warm day but the snow kept one cool enough.

A side effect of hiking in the snow - other than soaking wet feet - was the reflection of the sun. I ended up with getting slightly sunburned.


On we hiked trusting that the trail lay under the snow among the trees.

Gary made a snowball and then rolled it down the mountainside to see if it would get larger as it rolled. Nope. It didn't grow much.

In the photo: Flathead, Echo, and Mud lakes.



When we had crossed the ridge we could not see views of Flathead Lake, Echo Lake, and Mud Lake. To the south we could see the Swan Valley and part of the Swan Lake. Further on were the Mission Mountains.

We came to fresh bear tracks. Oh, my! Later two men who worked as part of the trail crews in the Bob Marshall Wilderness told us they were black bear tracks and not grizzly tracks. After a short distance the bear tracks left the trail. *whew*

That is a quarter in the paw print.

Eventually we reached a building housing a microwave relay tower. This was on the main north/south ridge of the Swan Mountain range. We could now see into the Jewel Basin, Hungry Horse Reservoir, and beyond: the mountains of Glacier National Park. Looking down below the tower were the frozen Picnic Lakes and further to the east, Black Lake, also frozen. Several years ago others and I hiked up from the Hungry Horse Reservoir to Black Lake. (Our goal was Cliff Lake but we missed the side trail).

The first photo is of the Picnic Lakes in the foreground with Black Lake towards the back.

The second photo is towards the south and is of Crater Lake.

Gary and I wanted to reach the top of Mt. Aeneas but we were concerned about the time. It had taken us 3 hours of hiking to get to this point. This was because hiking in the snow slowed us down. Gary needed to be back in town before 5 pm. It was 12:30 pm now. Joyce stayed at the tower and Gary and I hiked to the top of Mt Aeneas.

Mt Aeneas is in the first photo and patterns in the snow in the second photo.

You can see how the snow drifts over the ridge line. Hmm... maybe I shouldn't stand where I am standing.

A long way down. You can see how other snow had fallen to the bottom.

At the top we had 360 views. Beautiful! The very top was mostly free of snow as the winds had blown most of it away over winter. What surprised us were the large number of flies buzzing about.

Photo 1: looking back to the microwave tower.

Photo 2: part of Hungry Horse Reservoir and in the upper left corner one of those many pesky flies buzzing around.

After a short time, while Gary and I ate our lunches, two 20-something men joined us. They worked over summer as part of the trail crews in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. They can be based over 20 miles from the nearest road so they don't often get out when they have their four days off work. As Blair said, that could be good as it helps them save money. Blair once spent over $600 in four days and never bought anything tangible but had a good time. The other guy said he once walked into a bar and told the bartender he was there to spend money and have a good time, and he did. As they mainly spend their summer in "The Bob", they use the Spring and Fall to explore other areas and hikes, and that was why they were at Mt. Aeneas this day.

While we were talking a mountain goat came up from the southern side, and seeing us, circled around to the northern side, where he started to munch on a small shrub growing on the mountain side.

Hiking down in the snow was far different than hiking up. We half skied with our feet, half slid down the trail. We took a few short cuts that made going down even faster. In a little over a half hour we covered what had taken us several hours to hike up. Therefore we had time to take a short side trip up a western summit that overlooked the Valley.

This summit's elevation was 6437 ft. Over half of this trail was snow free. Many trees had burnt a few years ago in a forest fire so we had more open views of the Valley and lakes. Going down a little on the western side I found a structure made of branches built against the mountain side and facing towards the north. A large blue tarp covered the branches to make a roof. Snow was all around but from where I could see I didn't see anything inside the structure.

Before we left this summit I found a rock I had to have. Even with all this snow on the trail I still found a good sized rock.   It was only 2 miles to the pickup and downhill.

At two locations Gary and I slid down the mountain side to take a short cut. Before sliding down the snow I tossed my rock down and let it do its own sliding. The rock gathered snow and quickly got cold to hold. The warmth of the sun and air quickly melted the snow off the rock.

Gary offered to carry my rock to give me a break and eventually I took him up on his offer. He may have regretting his kindness as I borrowed his camera to take some photos of the stream and the snow and Gary ended up carrying the rock the rest of the way to the pickup.

The pickup's tire still had most of its air and we were able to drive back to town.

What a great day and great hike!