Submitted by Bill on Fri, 01/20/2006 - 11:46am
The
trip is Saturday and is organized by the
Rocky Mountaineers here in
Missoula. I am trip leader which means I volunteered and responsible for the planning. I did this trip last year so it is based on my experiences that the following is the plan.
Plan on a 10 to 12 hour full day. Last year it took me 11 hours on snowshoes. This year I hope to ski most of it so I am hoping to do it in under 10 hours.
If we meet I would like to meet at the
K-Mart parking lot at 6 am. It would be nice to hit the trail at 7ish.
The route will begin at the South Fork Lolo Trail-head. To get to the trail-head you travel up highway 12 from Lolo to the left turn on
Elk Meadows road. Up the
Elk Meadows Road there will be a access road to the extreme left at the gate which will be closed. 1.5 miles on the access road will bring you to the Trail-head. Chains are mandatory. In fact if no-one has chains the trip cannot proceed.
We will head up the
South Fork of Lolo Creek Trail until we reach a junction at around 1 to 2 hours. We will take a left and head for
Lantern Ridge. About an hour later we will be on the ridge. Once on the ridge we will leave the trail and follow the ridge to Lolo Peak. We should start to see our peak after 5 or so hours after leaving the car. We will ditch the skis for the rocky and windy summit climb. [
Last Year]