Mount Dean Stone Hike

Name: Mount Dean Stone Hike
Distance: 7.38 miles round trip
Time: 3 hours
Elevation Gain: 2,707.04 feet
Average Grade: 14
Summit: 6,203 feet
Difficulty: Moderate

This hike is on public property so you must go with someone who has permission to cross these lands. I did this hike with my friend Larry. We started out at his house at the top of Hill view Way. I will leave out specific details since to do this hike one must employ Larry to guide the way.

Out his back yard we headed south along a coolie (drainage gully). We crossed a fence and headed up Easterly to a farm road that seems to encircle this particular ridge. We hiked this overgrown dirt road a short way and headed up onto the ridge that we would follow to Dean Stone. The ridge gave us views of the Bitterroot Valley and just below, the Miller Creek Valley.

We followed the ridge which only got steep once, to a access road for Mount Deen Stone. We then traversed first to the road that comes from the Larch Camp Road in the valley below, and then up to the summit of Dean Stone.

It took us 1.5 hours to ascend this mountain. The last bit of road was a little icy so we descended straight down the mountain back the ridge we used to get to there. On the way down we took a ridge that was more to the North of the one we ascended on. We joined up to cattle trails and finally back down to the farm road that we ha been on in the beginning.

I give this hike 3 stars.