I surprised myself this week end by actually wanting to summit this one twice. I generally like to try something new, so this was out of character for me. Or was it? I had at first planned on hitting the trail from the Nine Mile area, but changed my mind as I couldn't find the trailhead and was running out of time Friday. So I went up the forest service road from Tarkio. I started to panic when I thought I was going to be able to drive right up to it. Thankfully, it was gated about 2.5 miles from the lookout. Now, Stark Mountain Lookout is, quite obviously, a lookout during the summer fire season. I bumped into two men grouse hunting on Friday who told me the gate was just open Tuesday, but apparently the massive amounts of rain had brought the fire season to an abrupt halt. Phew! So up I went to the lookout on a rather socked in day. It was less of a hike, and more of a walk and unfortunately there were no pictures of the scenery to be taken, as I was quite literally in the clouds. Ergo my yen to summit it again, but from the Nine Mile TH I had originally planned. Monday was Labor Day, and therefore I had no time constraints and could take my sweet time actually looking for the elusive trailhead. I say elusive only because the directions I had found were so ridiculously bad! After going down several wrong roads, I finally hit the right one! Relief! So, if you actually want to do this hike, and I highly recommend you do, from Missoula, go West on I90. Take a right off the Nine Mile exit, then a right onto W. Ninemile Rd. right after the Nine Mile House. At 3.3 miles, take a left at the sign for road 5511. You'll stay on that for 2.8 miles, then see the sign for road 5515, which says the TH is in 6 miles.....another lie. It's only 5.1 miles. Once I got to that first sign for road 5511, I was quite happy!
Now, on to the good stuff: Stats and pictures! The trail is 5.5 miles to the lookout with an elevation gain of 3757. It was a steady climb the whole way, and at less than 1000 feet per mile, that isn't too difficult (if you are regularly climbing mountains, I mean!)
The begining of Friday's hike...in the clouds! Then, about a mile up, I found a trail off of the forest service road....something to do in the future! And the view as I'm getting close to the lookout, the left is from the forest service road, the one on the right, from the Ninemile trail.
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| Love to see the critters, as long as they aren't lions, tigers or bears! |
As you can see, the views are the whole reason for being up there! Like I said earlier, I don't usually go up the same mountain in the same year, much less the same week end, but this was well worth it. The second time around, although it was cloudy, gave me this beautiful scenery and, after all, it was an alltogether different experience, coming from the opposite side of the mountain. Hope you enjoyed!
Good info! I keep not getting up this one...thanks for the inspiration.
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