Beaverhead County Highpoint Trip Report

Tweedy Mountain - near Dillon (11,154 ft)

Date: June 16, 2007
Author: Jim Perkins

From I-15 North of Dillon, take X-74 West: Apex/Birch Creek exit. After about five mile, pass through the Beaverhead National Forest Gate/Sign. Pass by the ghost town of Farlin and, at 8.5 miles, stay right toward "Aspen Camp/Birch Creek Lakes". At 9.7 miles stay right toward "Willow Creek Road". At 15.8, you will cross a cattle guard and then, at 16.2 miles, you can drive the remaining mile to the trailhead after passing signs that say, "Primitive Road" and "Gorge Creek Road, 1 Mile, Dead End".

I opted to park about 0.5 mile down the Prim Road path, as the low clearance, 2WD Impala balked. Not so bad, as the walk to the trailhead and the next 3 miles or so is on the absolute superhighway of trails: signs, cairns, blazes; it was almost like having a chauffer! At about 3 miles, stay to the left and take the "old trail" as you want to end up at the base of Tweedy and not at the shore of North Gorge Lake on the "new trail".

I left a few lengths of deadfall to mark this trail split (45° 29.673' N, 112° 56.987' W). Look for the fallen tree laying across the old trail. Also, there are two small cairns indicating the move to Tweedy with no North. I crossed a marsh, tromped through some snow and started the Class 3 scramble by picking a route just slightly to the East of the peak.

At the peak, the view (on another day, a guy could spend some time at South Gorge Lake -- lovely!) and weather (except for the black clouds that slowly followed me down -- spectacular otherwise!) were both like you read about. According to the metal box register, I was one of the first signers of 2007. Tweedy makes for a fun challenge that probably gets a lot more difficult when attempting Torrey at the same time. I bee-lined a path down to my stowed snowshoes, keeping the marsh area in my sights and then on-ramped the superhighway shortly thereafter. Time was 3:46 up and 3:18 down for the 3,821 feet of gain over about 9+ miles. Hopefully, this bodes well for the rest of the Western Montana HP’s.

By the way, the cohp.org write ups helped. However, the summitpost.org review by "Rocker Paully" guided my day today with good instructions (by the way, Trail 154 is the North Gorge Trail which you want to take up until the Old Trail/New Trail split) and great photos. Thanks, Paully!

Also, Gordon at the Beaverhead NF Ranger Station (406-683-3900) provided some very useful information for the drive.