Steamboat Mountain, Rocky Mountain Front

 

During one of the last weekends of September, we headed up for some camping at our property on the Dearborn River. It was Jen's dad's 60th birthday. On Saturday, I made the drive out from our land and up to the southern end of the Rocky Mountain Front, where the upper-Dearborn leaves the Scapegoat Wilderness. 

 

Steamboat Mountain reefs. The summit is behind the cliffs out of sight.

My goal was to bag Steamboat Mountain, which is the large massif you see on the last miles of the drive in (picture above) and is just across the Dearborn River from the trailhead. About one mile from the car, after passing several cabins, you'll cross the Dearborn, and a mile later you'll come to a sign on the trail that says, Lewis and Clark National Forest. A quarter-mile or less after this, you'll see a cairn on the right marking the hiker trail up to Steamboat. The trail isn't maintained and will peter out in several places along the way, but you'll get there simply by following your nose. On top are large open meadows, and the summit sits in the middle, not all that close to the edge of the reef that you see from the valley (see the below pic). It's a very rocky and desolate summit. The trip up is definitely worthwhile and is not terribly long. Views from the top are spectacular, especially of awesome Scapegoat Mountain (on my bucket list) to the northwest.

Steamboat is in the background. The peak is to the right of reef/cliff (photo taken from outtherewithtom.blogspot).

Another outtherewithtom.blogspot photo. This one of Scapegoat Mtn, long on my bucket list.