Beacon Hill- June 14, 2026

Participants: David and Julie Kahl

We prepared ourselves for what would be a 5 mile/6.8k hike, on a full-sun day in the 70’s/20c, in open, rolling, grassy terrain with no trees or shrubs, other than some sagebrush patches on the edges of the pasturage. A light wind helped. Beacon Hill is part of the divide between Harvey Creek and Flint Creek. At the trail head we found new kiosks behind a gate, and a scary “walk through gate” so narrow you couldn’t wear your pack to get through, and barbed wire -with the barbs still on, -inches from your clothes -and for us shorter people, pretty close to our faces. (Don’t know why someone didn’t go in there and cut off or dull the barbs for those first few feet.) Another kiosk at the start of the trail had a map and gave other information on the route. The route is still unsigned. At first you follow a two track road, that goes up a draw to “the first” walk through gate, not quite as narrow as the trail head one, we could keep our packs on. From here you follow roads/trail to yet another walk though gate, at a “T” corner of two fence lines. Well, when we got through the gate there were two configurations that fit the description on the kiosk, and the way point track on my GPS was missing a crucial way point. Of course we chose the wrong track, instead of going straight down into a little wetland, we went -uphill- left, following the trace of a two track road up a hill. By the time we realized our mistake and looked over the gully & hills terrain between us and where we need to be, to summit via the west ridge, we opted to continue up the ever fading two track road. It was taking us up on the south east ridge. The nice thing about the open terrain was that we could see the summit the entire time. And from the south east approach, could clearly see the Anaconda-Pintler Mts, down beyond Georgetown Lake. Eventually the two track became visible only because the vegetation was different where vehicle wheels had packed the ground. Most of the way up the ridge, the two track veered off to the left, away from the summit and we started cross country, angeling up the side of the ridge to the brow. When we got on the actual flank of the ridge we stopped for a lunch break. Most of this terrain is short grass prairie, with some longer grasses in wetter areas, and a few mostly bare rocky patches. The only thing impeding our progress was trying to not step on the numerous bitterroots in full bloom. On the brow of the ridge we found a more distinct two track that we followed to the summit. The summit had changed a bit from our previous trips, there was a badly faded kiosk in the concrete base structures for the old beacon light, and the actual summit where we had sat among bitterroots in the rocks to eat lunch, now had a 3 foot/1 m wide tire (tread width) with a sign like structure in it. We sat next to it and ate snacks. We came back down the west ridge, following the way points on my GPS, at one point the ridge side gets a bit steep, and we kept thinking we saw a trail of sorts. Down off the steep stuff the “trail” became more distinct, and I was hitting all the way points on the GPS. But we didn’t seem to be set-up to hit the second walk through gate at the fence corner. Instead we hit that fence line at a small corral, by a spring, and there was a gate there, we had probably been following cow paths. From there we could follow landmarks back to the first gate where we had made the wrong turn, hence back to the truck.In the sage brush by the trail head, where there was one lone juniper tree, a muley doe went bonging off to the top of the hill where she started to circle back, we figured she probably had a fawn in there somewhere. We also saw a deer from the summit, down the west ridge. In places there were lots of badger sized burrow holes, some fresh, but we never saw the badgers. We saw hunting raptors and two vultures flew over to check us out. As we were coming up on the first gate we could see small birds that flashed some blue, ideal terrain for mountain bluebirds, but when I blew up a photo saw, what my bird book shows, as a gray phase of mountain blue birds. (I’m open to interpretation.) We, of course heard meadowlarks, and David saw a killdeer doing the broken wing thing and there was grouse scat.But what we really came for was the wildflowers, much more expansive than the last two trips. Bitterroots growing right out of the dirt, all were pink ones. Lupine, penstemons, sky pilot/saucer flower, real phlox (white), both purple and white/yellow vetch, wild iris, prairie smoke, yellow paintbrush, gromwell and wild roses just getting ready to bloom, several varieties of buckwheat, yellow camas, pussy toes, several varieties of parsley, fleabane daises, asters, blanket flower like asters, groundsel, owl clover, pink collumia, yarrow and maybe a yellow agoseris. And, we kept seeing seed heads like those left by glacier lilies, -not glacier lily country, maybe mariposa lilies? Among invasive species: cinquefoil and arrow leaf balsam root were well distributed, but most invasive species only had a few scattered sitings: dandelion, alfalfa/beeplant, thistle, and other “pickers,”  I thought I saw a hounds tongue. Someone seemed to be doing a good job of weed control and this area continues to improve as a nice nature area.  Leader: Julie Kahl jawkal@hotmail.com