Lolo Peak (Bitterroots)- May 10, 2025

Lolo Peak Bike and Ski (Bitterroots)

Date: May 10,2025

Participants: Forest Dean, Tony LeBaron, Elizabeth Smith

Originally planned this for the previous weekend but decided to push it back a week for several reasons. I’d been thinking about doing this for a few years but for whatever reason had never pulled it off.  Tony was a willing participant and Elizabeth had limited time but was in for the bike portion.

Tony caught a ride to the Mormon Peak Road gate on Friday evening and then towed his small trailer behind his bike up to the trailhead where he camped.  Sometime after midnight a bear started rustling around near his tent and thereafter sleep was difficult.

Forest and Elizabeth left the Target Range area at 4:50am on Saturday and headed to Lolo then up Highway 12 to Mormon Peak Road.  From there it’s a mere 2500’ climb to the trailhead where we met Tony- took 2:45 to cover the 22 miles from Missoula.  Elizabeth turned back here and was back home in about 1 ½ hours.  Tony and Forest packed the skis on our backs and headed up the trail.  After about a mile of hiking we transitioned to skis and skinning.  Coverage was good by 6300’.  We more or less headed straight up, cutting the summer trail switchbacks and were at Carlton Ridge about 10:30.  Tony had been starting to have some issues at this point- wasn’t feeling well and riding the struggle bus a bit.  He didn’t think he had it in him to drop down to the lake then ascend the peak so he told me to go on and he’d wait in the rocky area near the ridge.  So, I skied down to the north side of the lake then contoured around to the north face of Lolo Peak by myself.  A couple inches of slushy snow over hardpack was enough to allow me to cut a skintrack all the way up to the east ridge without difficulty.  I arrived at the north summit at about 11:45.  The ridge over to the south (true) summit was mostly bare so decided against going over there.  Had a snack, transitioned, then skied right down the middle of north face- decent skiing.  Back down to north side of lake, gathered water, then skinned back up to Cartlton Ridge and met Tony who was just departing.  He had taken a nice nap.  We skied back down to our trail shoes then hiked the mile back to the trailhead.  The 9 mile cruise back to highway 12 was exhilarating and a nice reward for the hard push getting up there in the morning.  Back to Lolo and then the bike trail back to Missoula.  All told, a 54 mile round trip- 6900’ of elevation gain.  Took 11 hours at a not-too-hurried pace.  So much fun to go from Missoula to a Bitterroot summit without firing up an engine!  Forest Dean