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.