Phillips County High Point Trip Report
Antoine Butte - three areas (5,720+ ft)
Date: June 3, 2002
Author: Andy Martin
Before the vacation I'd printed several trip reports off cohp.org, and the one for county by Jerry & Betty
Brekhus came in very handy. The mountains were socked in up high, and we anxiously drove through
Zortman looking for the road up. The Ruby Gulch road was gated as Jerry mentions, so we headed up Pony Gulch.
The "crux" came fairly soon on steep, wet, rocky, high centered sections along Pony Gulch.
Believe I had to take two runs at one hill, but I was pretty desperate to avoid exertion, as usual.
Once we got to the saddle at the head of Pony Gulch the grade eased off, but we were still on a narrow
mountain road in the clouds. Luckily, we made it all the way to the berm just before the west line of section 13.
This is where we parked.
Just past the berm is a mine haul road, and every so often huge Honda-squashing haul trucks rumbled by
through the mist. I walked up the road to the 3 areas, keeping a low profile when trucks were in the vicinity.
The road passes close to all areas. The middle area did have a radio tower as shown on the map,
and I left a MT list here. At the north area another radio mast was spotted. It was pretty raw in the windy spots,
and I was glad to make a U turn and head back to the car, my Mexico-Canada cohp link finally in place.
GPS reading: Etrex WGS84, good sky - middle area (47° 55.927' N; 108° 34.671' W) at 5,795 ft