Return to the Pioneer Mountains of Montana

[Aaron Zagrodnick]

When a trip has great scenery, plenty of lakes with nice-sized trout, and hardly any crowds it seems to be worth repeating – even if that means leaving some other destinations on my “places to hike list” for another year. Fall weather had arrived – and with snow already falling in the high country (but fortunately not sticking in most places, at least not yet), I found myself getting rather anxious about which trips to wrap up the backpacking season with. Internal discussions about prioritizing fishing over fall foliage, cranking out the miles, or appreciating a solitary evening at a lake accessed only by slow-going cross-country travel, and exploring new terrain versus returning to old favorites occur almost ceaselessly once the leaves start to turn and the days start to get shorter. After much handwringing and map reading, I decided that for a three-night mid-September trip, I would repeat a trip I had done almost exactly one year ago. This trip checked most of the boxes that I use for determining a good backpacking trip...

@Mark Wetherington details this backpacking and fishing trip in the Pioneer Mountains of Montana - you can take a look at the links below in Issue 49:

Return to the Pioneers

Issue 49 Page 1