Union Peak (Swans) - September 29, 2024

Leader: Forest Dean

Participants: Jacob Potter, Kevin Ewing

The three of us departed the south side of Missoula at 6am and headed for the Seeley-Swan Valley. We arrived at out start at 7:45. We parked in front of the gate on FR 9721 right off FR 901. Got going at 8am. Other than the first quarter mile of hiking up the unused FR 9721, this entire trip was all off-trail. The weather was perfect all day- perhaps a little too warm (for late September) in the afternoon. We essentially slogged straight up the steep ridge between Cat Creek and Dog Creek. First 3000’ was steep, but surprisingly almost no brush (very little downfall as well). Once on ridgetop our route went up and down and around some rocky highpoints. At no point did we put our poles away (class 2 all the way). The final 800’ to the summit was also pretty steep, but no difficulties and at 12:20 we were on top. Owing to the beautiful day we spent nearly an hour at the summit. We simply retraced our steps on the descent and arrived back at the trailhead at 4:45pm. My stats showed 7.8 miles and about 5300’ of elevation gain. A rather pleasant day in the Swans! Forest Dean