We did this hike Saturday May 26, 2018. Present company was Sheldon, Curtis and I. We were originally going to do Pasque Mountain but we couldn’t cross the creek; it was too fast and too cold to risk it. Sentinel mountain is along the same road, just further down (not to be confused by the other mountain by the same name). *Edit: my map originally called it sentinel peak; it just updated and now it’s Hailstone Butte…

We started out at roughly 8 am. There was no real defined train from the west, so the entire trip was making our own to the summit. The easiest route up looked to be a dried creek bed down a gravel road that was closed off. It showed a somewhat gentle incline and reached the top of the saddle. The creek had great “stepping stones” that made hiking up easy.

Once we made it to the saddle, we took a quick break to take in the views to the west. You could easily see all the logging that was going on in the valley. After a few minutes to pushed on. We went to the ridge and looked out to the east to the other valley. The rock outcropping were interesting because they looked like they were bolted on to the mountain (my guess is erosion exposed them).

The push to the summit was more of a light scramble. It was easy to pick you way up; no exposure. There was still snow drifts along the way… they clearly had more snow that usual.

Once at the top, we found some weather stations and fire lookouts. The wind had picked up and was blowing clouds up and over the summit so we didn’t stick around long. We headed back down the west face of the mountain (after thinking it would be harder to go back does the creek route). The trip down was easy but steep in sections. We reached the tree line fairly quick and picked our way through with no troubles. We came out to the same spot we started at on the road then hiked a short distance back to the car.

In Summary:

The hike only took about 4.5 hours and we gained 800m in elevation in 7km (round trip). It was a great hike that afforded us views on our next hike.