Butte Cabin Ridge (Quigg Peak East), Rock Creek Peakbagging

Butte Cabin Ridge/Quigg Peak East with the Missions just peaking through in the background.

One of my recent purchases is a book called Peakbagging Montana by Cedron Jones. Cedron Jones is an intriguing guy, the little that I could find out about him: he's now in his 70's and has been peak obsessed since the 80s when he moved to Montana. Since then he's summited over 1000 peaks in Montana. Anyway, in his book, he's put together a cool list of 53 Montana peaks. Some of them it's certain you've heard of before, while others will surely be new to you. For me, one of the new ones was Quigg Peak East, or Butte Cabin Ridge, which isn't terribly tall at 8468 feet, but which is quite prominent, at #83 on the Montana prominence list. This high prominence rank is due to the fact that it is the tallest peak in the mountainous area boardered by Rock Creek on the west, the Clark Fork to the north, Flint Creek on the east, and the Pintlers to the north. And once again, because it's so prominent, the views from the top (and actually throughout much of the hike) are great: of the Pintlers, the Flints, the Bitterroots, and the Scapegoat.  The hike is 15 miles round trip with 5000 feet of gain, so it's a strenuous affair. It's also a dry hike and would be hot in summer, making fall and spring good times to do it.

Getting there & the hike: This trail head is easy to find, but is a bit tedious to get to. You simply drive up Rock Creek Road from I-90 almost exactly 30 miles, which is long on that road, at which point you'll see a trail head sign for Quigg Peak Trail and also an entrance into the Hogback Forest Service Cabin. The first 1-2 miles of the hike meander through open ponderosa pine grasslands with views of Rock Creek, before you begin a several mile stiff climb up the ridge before it eases off again. At about five miles, you'll descend shortly to a saddle where you can see Butte Cabin Ridge across a drainage (see above picture). The remainder of the hike traverses to the right around the ridge at the top of the drainage, about two miles to the base of the peak.

Getting up out of the fog in the morning, Pintlers in the distance.

A close up of the Pintlers.

Same view wider angle.

The northern Bitterroots, with Quigg Peak in the foreground from Quigg Peak East/Butte Cabin Ridge.

The Flint Range to the south. Mount Powell is the big one.

Pudge and the Flints.

Looking north east, at (I think) the Scapegoat.

Pintlers from Butte Cabin Ridge. The rounded one in the center is, I think, Little Rainbow, in which case to the left are Howe and then Evans, and to the right are Tiny, Kurt, and then Queener.

Southern Bitterroot from Butte Cabin Ridge. Como Peaks in the middle, then Lonesome Bachelor and El Capitan cutoff on the right. On the left, The Shard.

My favorite shot of the day: Stormy Joe, St. Joseph Peak (the massive one), Little St. Joe, and Butte Cabin Ridge in the foreground.

Ponderosa grasslands looking down toward the Hogback Cabin, the trail head, and Rock Creek.