Glacier Mountaineering Society

Sun, Oct 17 2010 - Loneman Mountain and Lookout (7,181ft) (View Original Event Details)

Coordinator(s):		Tim Anderson
Participants:		Tim Anderson, Pat Keane-Richmond, Allison McCarthy

Write Up:
The days are short in the Nyack Flats, it was 8:30am and the sun was still hidden behind the hills. The temperature was 20F when we started out that Sunday morning.

A train was stopped on the tracks we had to cross in order reach the river. After a few minutes of discussion we crawled across under one of the train cars.

There was ice around the edges of the Flathead River that we had to cross. Everyone was a little apprehensive and we considered moving off and doing a different trail. We finally dove in. It was painful, I mean it really hurt, but we made it across. We quickly dried off and put on our socks and boots and hit the trail with numb toes. After a mile, when we had finally regained feeling in our feet, we reached Nyack Creek and had to do it all again. It did not feel as bad as the first river, the sun had finally risen so that helped warm us up.

The trail offered us a wonderful view of the fall colors in the Nyack Flats below. The area had burned several years before; there is one area along the trail where the ground is carpeted by three foot high Larch, a sea of light green needles, then stretching up from these every hundred feet or so a huge old growth Larch that had been tall enough to be spared by the fire.

The summit has one of the best views of Mt. Stimson I have seen. We had a nice relaxing lunch on the lookout. The sun shined on us all day, which made up for the temperatures which I didn't get above freezing until we were on our way down in the afternoon.

On the way back we stopped for a few minutes and explored the old abandoned Nyack Ranger Station. It was 5pm when we had to make our return crossing of the Flathead River. The sun had already dropped behind the hills.

Have some photos from this event that you'd like to share in our photo album? Please forward them to Tim Anderson at twamontana@gmail.com. Please note that we prefer to receive the photos in approximately 640x480 or 750x500 pixels - do NOT send original high-res photos. If you have a LOT of photos, please submit up to twenty of your favorites (only) for a day event, or up to forty of your favourites for a multi-day event. Thank you.