Beaverhead County High Point Trip Report

Date: July 2000
Author: Andy Martin

Got the Honda to 7320', 1/2 mile east of Winkley Camp (now demolished) where we bush camped (with flies and mosquitoes in an area visited by cows). Drive to here is not too bad, and I might have gotten Honda to trailhead, but I did not try it. In any case, high clearance 2WD will have no problems getting to trailhead at 7480', where better campsites are found.

Got 5AM alarm next morning, and made good time on N Gorge Lake trail to about 8760'. Here you head SSW to top of bench at 9360'. Bench is guarded by cliffs - pass to the west of these.

From here it is a beeline up steep rocky NE ridge to 10,800', and then a much easier stroll to summit. There is a nice National Forest metal register box anchored to the highest boulder. Entries go back many years, with only a few non-MT residents logging in. Bob Packard had been up in 1997, by way of a difficult traverse from Torrey Mountain. Torrey is supposedly 7 feet lower, and I whipped out my 2X Kuker-Rankin sight level and took several sightings over there. To my admittedly biased eyes Torrey came out slightly lower every time. Suppose this will have to suffice until David Olson hauls a rod up Torrey, a surveyors transit up Tweedy, and gives us the definitive height differential between the two.