Coal Ridge lookout

On Friday October 10, after Kendra completed another radiation treatment,  Joyce, Kendra and I hiked to the cabin and lookout tower on Coal Ridge in the North Fork near Polebridge, Montana.  With the around eight miles that I did on this hike, I have now hiked over 100 miles for the year so far.

I had first learned of this lookout from a story in the Hungry Horse newspaper about a recent restoration project.

http://www.flatheadnewsgroup.com/hungryhorsenews/fire-lookout-gets-a-new-lease-on-life/article_617000ca-497f-11e4-aa5b-c32ea6ab4c38.html

Here is a link to the group that did the restoration.  Look for the Moran Patrol Cabin section.

http://www.nwmt-ffla.org/#!2014-projects/c1nlq

Coal Ridge actually consists of three lookout points along the ridge-top. The first was a cabin at the west point (7285') in 1928. A 24' pole platform tower was added in the 1930's 1.5 miles southeast of the cabin at the 7100' level. Then in 1935 a 20' pole L-4 tower was constructed 1 mile southeast of the original cabin at the 7105' level. Used for emergencies in the 1960's, it has obviously not been maintained for a number of years.

Here are a couple of historic photos of the platform and tower lookouts.

There are several ways to reach the lookout and cabin, but the easiest way is to use the Moran Creek Trail, trail number 2. From the North Fork Road go on Forest Service Road 376 (Hay Creek).  Then go on the Moran Creek Basin road: Forest Service Road 5241 until it ends at a berm in the road.

The trail head is six to seven miles from the North Fork Road which was over 30 miles from Columbia Falls.

Trail 239 is a shorter trail at 1.9 miles long, but a much steeper trail with about 3100 ft of elevation gain.

The trail head is only marked with a small rock cairn on the side of the road a short distance from the road's end.  The trail is not the closed road beyond the berm.  There is no trail head sign or post.

Moran Creek Trail number 2 is 3.04 miles to the junction with trail 14.  The junction is between the cabin and the lookout tower.  The cabin is a little farther away and higher than the lookout tower.  The cabin might be a half mile or more from the trail junction.

I don't know the elevation gain on trail 2.  The trail starts out with a quick elevation gain from the road to get the heart racing, but then settles into a steady but not steep climb. The trail goes along the mountain side until it gets closer to the head of the valley.  It passes by a few small streams that were easy to cross at this time of year.  We also crossed a few muddy seeps that had us go off trail around them.  There was only one recent downed tree across the trail.  From signs of other downed trees the trail appears to be maintained.

Trail 2 ends at trail 14 which runs along the top of Coal Ridge.  The trail junction is at a saddle on the ridge, the lowest part of the ridge.  The steepest part of the hike is on the ridge to the cabin and to the lookout tower.  Kendra ran out of gas on the hike along the ridge to the cabin and did not make it there.  Joyce joined me at the cabin.  Joyce and Kendra then started to hike back to my pickup while I hiked up to the lookout tower.

The lookout tower is not as it appears in the historic photo.  The roof had blown off and landed upside down against a grove of trees.  The roof was mostly intact. The tower's floor walls were gone into a pile of wood at the base of the tower's legs.   The tower's legs were still standing but who knows for how long.  One of the legs no longer was on its concrete pad and several cross trunks were gone or broken.

The tower's structure is different from most lookout towers in that the legs (support structure) were made of tall thick tree trunks bolted together.

When we had gotten to the junction of trails 2 and 14 we could not see the tower or cabin and had to trust which way to go.

The cabin can be seen from the road's end and from a point close to the trail's beginning (as shown in the photo below).  Otherwise you do not see the cabin again until either when you begin the hike to the lookout tower and look back, or at the end when you approach the cabin.

As we got closer to the ridge we could smell smoke.  On the ridge we could see smoke from beyond the next ridge from what appeared to be a controlled burn.  Without the smokey skies we would have had awesome views of the Glacier Park mountains.  This day they were partially obscured.

At the trail junction you can finally see over the ridge down into the Coal Creek valley.  It is a long way down and I don't doubt it would be a 3100 ft climb from the floor to the cabin.

Coal Creek Valley with smoke from the fire.

From the cabin I had great views of the Whitefish Range Mountains and could pick out the ones (Tuchuck, Thoma, etc.) I had hiked on. The skies were not as smokey in that direction as the breeze had not blown the smoke that way.

The cabin was not locked. It was clean and stocked.

From the ridge there were lots of views of the Moran Creek Basin.  I could easily see where the forest had been logged some years ago.  Above that line the trees were all green with a troubling amount of old dead trees.  Below the line the forest was a healthy green with lots of yellow from Western Larch.  The trails were above the logged line so one did pass by a number of snags standing over the trail.

There is no trail to Moran Peak but it doesn't look like it would be difficult to hike to the top of that peak for more views.  I also did not have time to hike east past the tower lookout to search for the platform lookout.  I imagine that would be ruins also.  I also didn't see an obvious trail (trail 14) east of the tower lookout though it also did not appear to be difficult to walk east along the ridge.

If you are interested in what happened after the hike was over, follow this link.

http://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2014/10/pickup-breakdown.html


For more photos, follow this link:

https://plus.google.com/photos/109566462412251958234/albums/6069156543016988481?authkey=CL649cXz1Y_n3AE

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Numa lookout with Charlie

Sunday June 17, 2012 I hiked to Numa Lookout in Glacier Park with my Minnesota friend Charlie and his son, Simon. They were visiting me for a few days during their journey to Oregon.   The Going-to-the-Sun road was not cleared of snow and opened yet over Logan Pass so this hike was a good alternative to see a beautiful lake and get some elevation mountain views for someone who had never been to Glacier Park before.

Trail distance: 11.2 roundtrip.

Elevation gain: 2930 ft

Highest Point: 6960 ft

It had rained the night before and the vegetation along the trail was wet.  I led, and even using a stick to brush the water off the vegetation, my lower legs got wet.

The forecast threatened rain in the afternoon and rain was what we got after we were up at the lookout. It was a wet hike back down the mountain to my car.   Surprisingly several couples were hiking up the trail in the rain as we were hiking out.

Bowman Lake before and after our hike

Snow was across a few spots on the trail.

We had started our hike at the far end of the lake.

Rain moved in.

It rained with some sleet during the hike back down the mountain.

Hustling down the trail in the rain

21 second video of rain/sleet on the Numa Lookout hike:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5s4vBk1ByA


I put plastic bread wrappers in my shoes in an attempt to keep my feet dry. Didn't work as well as I had hoped.

Stopping to check out the sap on a tree trunk.

Wet, but back to the car.  Now, why didn't we think to bring extra pairs of dry socks?

After our hike we stooped at the Merc in Polebridge, MT and Charlie bought each of us a homemade baked item to eat.

Between the North Fork Road and the North Fork river.

Flathead County decided this section of the North Fork road was too wide and in the Fall of 2012 carved off each side of the road and narrowed it down quite a bit.

28 second video of this waterfall along the North Fork road: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1egtFUjttI

Wolverine sighting

I forgot to mention in my post about hiking to Tuchuck Mountain, but Patti and I saw a wolverine.  We saw it cross the North Fork road as we were driving to Tuchuck. I think we were just south of Polebridge, MT when we saw the wolverine.  At first we weren't sure what animal it was as neither of us had ever seen a wolverine before.  But that is what it was.

It was a treat to see a wolverine as they are very rare animals.

In case you want to know more about wolverines, here is a link to a PBS documentary on wolverines:  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/wolverine-chasing-the-phantom/full-episode/6078/

Numa Ridge Lookout in August

Last November Patti and I hiked up to the Numa Ridge Lookout (story and photos - click here).  This Saturday we decided to hike to the lookout again, this time when it wasn't so cold.  In fact, with the forecast to have the high temperature in Kalispell at 90 F degrees, hiking up north and up a mountain would be cooler.  And it was, as the temperature up at the lookout was pleasant.

The hike was 11.2 miles round trip with an elevation gain of 2930 ft up to an elevation of 6960 ft at the lookout.

Because it was going to be a hot day, Patti, Mary and I got an early start. They were at my place after 7 am and we were on the trail after 9 am. The others in our hiking group had other plans.

While a good number of people were at Bowman Lake, we only saw six people on the trail to the lookout.

We did see horse poop, bear scat, and wolf scat.  Here is the wolf scat.

The lookout is staffed, and a young college student was there this summer.  She was friendly and helpful in naming the peaks as Patti forgot her map.  She also explained the trail heading north to the false summit did not go down to Akokala Lake.  Instead it was the old trail up to the lookout.  Because the trail was in the bowl to the north of the lookout, the trail melted out late and had other issues.  So years ago the Park created the switchback trail to the south of the lookout.  The old trail starts at the first switchback and is in pretty good shape for being abandoned.  There were only a half dozen trees growing on the trail and about the same number of downfall over the trail.  I would recommend going down the old trail instead of up.  Use the switchback trail to go up.

At the lookout was another couple who were from Great Falls, MT.  Their son was climbing Rainbow Peak with a friend this day.  To do that, they had to kayak quite a few miles on Bowman Lake to where they would start their climb.  There is no trail so they bushwhack up to above the tree line then climb the rest of the way.  They planned on it only taking 12 hours.  Oh!  To be 24 years old again!

In the photo, Rainbow Peak (9,891 ft)  is the large mountain in the center and to the left.  Mt Carter (9,843 ft) is in the far background and Square Peak (8,777 ft) is the smaller pointy peak to the right of center.  The climber's route was up the area between Rainbow Peak and Square Peak.  At the saddle between the peaks they would climb Rainbow just on the other side of the ridge line to the top.

Mary has not hiked much this year as her knee and hip has been bothering her.  She did fine hiking up, but the last few miles hiking down were hard on her.  She had to stop and take a pain pill.

Back at the foot of the lake we rested.  Mary read, Patti swam, and I got to use Patti's kayak.  That is the first time I have been in a kayak.

Afterwards we stopped at the Northern Lights Saloon in Polebridge for supper.  It was busy but not crowded.  It was steak night and Patti and I had steaks.  Mary, leaning towards being a vegetarian, had some sort of salad.  The food was very good.


Bowman Lake as seen from the trail and later from the lookout.

The trail starts at the far end of the lake.  It follows the lake .7 mile then climbs up the ridge that is right of center.  The trail passes just right of the small lake.

Akokala Lake, as seen from just north of the lookout.

From the lookout, a view of the false summit of Numa Peak.  The true summit is behind this false summit.  A climb to the top of this false summit doesn't seem to be too difficult and someday I want to do it.

On the right, the Numa false summit.  On the left, Reuter Peak (8,763 ft). In the background... I don't know.

Reuter Peak and the Whitefish Range in the background.

Snow is still near the abandoned old trail north of the lookout.

Views of the lookout from the old trail.