Black Cat Gulch - October 13, 2024

Participants: David & Julie Kahl

It was another of those incredible fall days, perfect for hiking except the air quality, again, was in the hazardous range down in the Bitterroot Valley where the Fred Burr Res. is, so we opted to go someplace with less wildfire smoke impact. Two weeks ago we had done a “Sunday afternoon exploratory” hike up Black Cat Gulch Rd., up Mill Creek, in the Reservation Divide Range north of Frenchtown. We opted to go back there and do more exploring. Black Cat Gulch drains the southwest aspect of Charity Peak, but most of the Black Cat Gulch Rd (BCGR) lives in the Frontier Cr. basin on the south side of ridge that separates it from BCG. A short bit of the road goes over a short, steep, unnamed drainage that goes straight down into Mill Cr. before topping out on the west shoulder of the ridge, a sub-ridge of Charity Peak, and proceeds to run on the south side of that ridge. About five miles up there is a gate on the road, and maps show the road going another mile or so past the gate and ending. But BCGR is one of those old roads that used to go through all the way to the top of Evaro Hill, it’s no longer there, but just outside of Evaro, on the west side of Hwy 93 was a street sign that said Black Cat Gulch Rd. The GPS’s showed the continuation of the road from where the maps said it ended to where it comes down into a subdivision just outside of Evaro.

Always looking for new, early and late season and point to point hikes,the lower end of BCGR has access to many roads and trails that run up into the hills just to the south. But two weeks ago we had parked by a closed gate about 3 1/2 miles/5.63k up BCGR, and followed a closed road east towards the 93 corridor. First some other roads come off going down into open brushy areas where the Black Cat Fire of 2007 had burned. Then we reached the top of a finger ridge that went south, with trees on it, and even more old closed roads, and signs with road numbers still in place. Crossing over that ridge top we were no longer in Frontier Cr., but in small drainages that drained into the Clark Fork or O’Keefe Cr. with occasional views into the east side of the Missoula Valley. It was an easy road to walk on, parked at 4400ft, it stayed between 4400 and 4500 ft/1341.12m-1371.6m the entire two miles we walked on it. In one place the road kinda ended, we followed a trail down to cross a small stream and picked up an obvious road again on the other side. Instinct just told us that the road continued east to meet with the 93 Corridor, maybe in about another mile. Our first thought for today was to go back and finish that last mile, but I had forgotten to take our Ninemile Ranger District map two weeks ago and decided to scope it out first. Our instincts were correct, just “around the corner” from where we had turned back, the road ran out on the east aspect of the ridge, where it would need to drop 400 feet/121.92m to the highway. It did so on “spaghetti roads,” where it looked like some one had thrown spaghetti on the map, and there were twists and turns, road junctions and half mile long switch backs that could add miles to the route, if you could even figure out which way to go. So much for my hoping this would make a nice 3-4 mile or 7-8 mile/ 4.83k-6.44k or 11.27k-12.87k point to point hike. Too bad, it was really nice road.

For today we drove up the major switch back that gated road came from and a short distance up another road went to the east, seeming to be the same story, stayed at the same elevation then went down into the same maze of spaghetti roads. It hadn’t been decommissioned, or gated, not that we could see, anyway, but where it met BCGR it had been “objectified” with bigger rocks and logs and brush to discourage use. We continued up the road toward where it tops out on the west end of the Frontier-Black Cat Ridge and just below the shoulder is a gated road that goes 3-4 miles/4.83k-6.44k up BCG to an electronics site. We continued on to the top and the gate on BCGR. There, there is a side road, that we knew from having previously been there, went out onto the north side of the ridge, over looking BCG, to a small camping spot over look. We drove up there, there was pickup truck parked there, took some pictures and went back down to the gate where we had some lunch. There was also a pick up truck parked there. From high up we had a good view south to the smoke shrouded ridges and could see just how smoky the Bitterroot Valley was and were glad we weren’t down there. After lunch we decided to go down and hike on the Electronic Site road (ESR).

All the way up we had seen “Electric Supply “cans,” presumably the electric supply for the electronic site, from the way they were placed it seemed they went cross country rather than followed the road, now they diverted onto the ESR. The road quickly took us around to the BCG side of the ridge, and now on a north facing slope, the day was warm enough that the shade felt good. We soon found ourselves in a land of magnificent rock outcropping, in some cases going from the top of the ridge above us, all the way down to the valley floor of BCG below us. Seemed like a bouldering wonderland. Looking up it looked like the very top of the ridge, above us, was one huge rock outcrop. Once again it was a very nice road to walk on, with bright yellow willows and smaller trees returning after the fire. It rose slowly to the rounded hills at the headwaters of BCG, and Charity Peak and the summit just to the south with the Electronic Site. David had errands to run when we got back to town so we set a turn around time of 2:PM, picked out a prominent rock face up the road in front of us as a turn around spot. We went a little over 1 1/2 miles/ 2.41k, about half way to the electronic site. Across the gulch we could see a maze of roads that confounded us. It seemed that in several places they could have come over and connected with this road, but both the map and the GPS’s showed no connections. On the way back we studied the roads intently, and eventually consulting the Ninemile Ranger District map, those roads all came in from a complex in Fir Cr. the next creek to the north. (The route we had used when we climbed Charity Peak.) And some of the roads meet with a complex of roads around Charity Peak, but no connection to here. Once again my hopes for an easy point to point route was dashed. Now, some of the roads were close enough and in easy enough terrain that a scramble over to them would serve as a connector, if someone really wanted to do that. On the way in we had scared up a grouse, and now scared up a second (same?) in roughly the same place. As we drove out two vultures were working over Frontier Cr.