Bozeman, MT: Hiking Blackmore Peak

This week I’m hanging out in Bozeman, Montana and started the trip off with a really hard hike to Blackmore Peak.

We had the hike pitched to us as a moderately difficult 10 mile hike with some elevation and ended up recording 16 miles on the fitbit with 3700 ft of elevation gain. The trailhead at least is only a half hour drive from the Bozeman downtown area, which is completely adorable and I’ll be exploring more this week.

We arrived at the trailhead at 9:30AM and returned to the car at 5PM, at which point it started dumping, complete with visible bolts of lightning and nearly subsequent thunder. We did manage to avoid all the rain though (with a quick sprint to the parking lot at the end) and the weather was lovely most of the day!

Beyond just generally being a long and strenuous hike, Bozeman is already at 4800 ft of elevation compared to Seattle’s position at sealevel so, especially at the beginning of the hike, I was getting pretty winded.

The hike had mountains, a lot of trees, a lake and stream, a lot of chipmunks, and some paw prints at one point that looked suspiciously like bear prints. Montana is grizzly country (as opposed to Washington’s more common black bears) so we picked up bear spray ($30 at Walmart), which I’m honestly terrified of accidentally setting off on myself. See Bear Safety for tips on how to stay safe in bear country.

I would do the hike again but we didn’t pack enough snacks, so that’s something I would fix in the future, as well as getting an earlier start on the trail. We brought microspikes, which were very useful for the longer sloped snowy spots (there were several) though not everyone on the trail had microspikes or poles and still made it through. My feet also ended up getting pretty wet by the end, so they’re definitely due for another layer of waterproofing spray.

The peak was definitely worth all the work though and it was really a spectacular view, if a little rocky – so not super comfortable for a full body collapse.