The Snowy Mountains are the pride of Central Montana's "wild places". With a comparatively small surrounding population "The Snowies" (as the locals say) see very minimal human foot traffic, apart from the stunning views surrounding "Chrystal Lake", including "The Ice Caves", an epic 800' tall limestone crag named "Grandview",and of course the lake itself. This subalpine lake is the only lake in the range and lies high up in the rock creek drainage at around 6,000'. All these features take up only a small portion of the western side of the range. The range consist of one big main ridge that tapers slightly east-west from 8,660 at Greathouse Peak to 8,100 just beyond West Peak which sits just above the lake and Grandview. Further more the ridge extends even beyond West Peak and all of these main features. The main ridge is supplemented with multiple sub-ridges and deep drainages branching off to the north and south. Most of these ridges are headwalled with big beautiful "pseudo-cirques" and elongated ridglines that seem to extend forever. The eastern end of the range sits along the edge of Redhill Rd. were the road makes the split between the Big Snowies and the Little Snowies. Here you can access Uhlhorn Trailhead the route start point. This trail navigates through Halfmoon Canyon where it crosses the creek multiple times before it makes the short climb to Halfmoon Pass. The pass is full of stunning views of the vast landscape to the south including Old Baldy summit (range high point) also known as Snowy Mountain Peak, and the Swimming Women drainage. The route gains the main ridge and travels the length of the range, (past the Uhlhorn junction and Ice Caves) and clear to the Grandview Trail where it finally drops down towards the Grandview summit and beyond to the route end point at the Chrystal Lake "day use area" parking lot. Route navigation, overgrown trails, potential wildlife, lack of water anywhere on the ridge, ever-changing elements, and wild scenery make this route a true Central Montana classic. I am proud to have pioneered a route of this caliber and I see great potential for this route being challenged in the future. Im thinking this could be a great out and back effort from the lake aswell. All challengers please feel free to reach out to me for more route beta.
