Miner Creek

Overview

This is a hike without any great difficulty. It is 10 miles round trip with some cross country travel through short brushy areas.

Getting There

To get to the trailhead for Blackfoot BM head north from the town of Blackfoot on State Highway 91. About 9.5 miles from the intersection of Hwy 91 and Hwy 26 is Wolverine Road on your right. If you get to Firth you’ve gone too far, turn around and backtrack a couple miles until you find Wolverine Rd.

Stay on Wolverine Rd for about 10.6 miles. You are paralleling the Blackfoot River now and you want to continue doing so. Turn right at this intersection 10.6 from Hwy 91. Continue another 4.0 miles and turn right again and go another 7.0 miles. This last part is all on a high speed gravel road. At this point the road dips down into a gully and there is a small farm house on the right. There is a driveway up Miner Creek on the left. Turn left here and find a place to park off the road next to the gate and fence. This is the trailhead, elevation 5,800ft. Any 2WD vehicle should be able to drive to this point unless there is snow on the ground of course.

Route Description

After you have obtained permission to hike or drive past the gate, head on up the well traveled road. In about .8 mile you will come to a big corral with a gate on either end. Proceed through the gates leaving them in the condition (open/closed) that you found them. There is a fork in the road right after the corral. Take the left fork and ford Miner Creek. The right fork will get you there too, but there is a lot of extra climbing that way.

The topo’s don’t show a road on both sides of the creek, but there is. Follow the left side road up Miner Creek and through another corral. Stay on the road for about 3.2 miles until you get to a point directly west of Blackfoot BM. Elevation here is only 5,900 ft. Unfortunately, you cannot see Blackfoot BM yet. At this point, find a place to ford the creek again and head east up the brushy draw ahead. The cows have made a nice trail system up this slope, so look around until you stumble on it and follow it up through the brush. If you miss this trail and continue up Miner Creek, you will have to walk around the north side of Point 6649 before finding the western slope of Blackfoot BM. This will add some mileage to your hike.

You will do some climbing here until you get to a little saddle at about 6,500ft elevation where you can finally see Blackfoot BM across the head of High Basin ahead of you. Descend about 40 ft to the grassy High Basin and head for the shortest path through the Aspens on the opposite side of High Basin. You will want to climb the obvious western ridgeline of Blackfoot BM.

If you climb all the way straight up this western ridgeline to the summit ridgeline, you can then walk south to the summit. The summit ridgeline requires some rock hopping to get to the summit. Nothing technical, it’s just a little irregular. If you see a better route once you clear the aspens low on the west side of Blackfoot BM, go for it. There isn’t anything technical on the whole mountain, so proceed to the summit as you wish. I stayed on the western ridge up to the summit ridge. It seemed to be less brushy that way.

Total hike is about 10 miles with 2,000ft of elevation gain. Allow about 5-6 hours for this hike.

Essential Gear

The 10 essentials are always necessary. It can be hot in this area, so be prepared with sunscreen and a hat. Also, bring enough water for your hike. The hike is 10 miles round trip. Miner Creek has water in it but it also has cows and beaver using the creek as their latrine.

Images

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