Three of us left the Bighorn Parking Lot heading directly NW up the sparsely treed hillside to the south ridge of Missinglink mountain with amazing views under bright blue skies.
Once on top the next 2 km heading west are very pleasant.
At the west end, the trail drops down more northward and crosses a cutline.
After that, the trail peters out and the route heads gently up to the summit proper with expansive views to the west and north. This is the usual turn-around point for most parties but we continued around clockwise to visit 3 more peaks.
Annoying Alders started to appear, making previous trail remnants harder to follow, though not too bad.
Around the fourth and final top is a proliferation of matchstick pines forming a kind of maze that's almost fun to go through. We followed the NE ridge down to the valley bottom with a creek and meadows.
Heading east now, we occasionally encountered boggy areas that didn't last very long. The biggest surprise of the day was spotting a black bear directly ahead of us, munching in the meadow.
When it noticed us, it ran off into the trees, allowing us to continue on our way.
After a couple more easy creek crossings, we headed south and came to the highway, less than 1/2 km from our cars.
We all appreciated the variety of classic foothills terrain.
Participants: Rosanne,Philip, andBrian, trip Coordinator.