Distinctly Montana Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.distinctlymontana.com/i/613959
W W W. D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A . C O M 15 When French-Canadian fur trappers first surveyed the moun- tain range straddling the Idaho/Montana border just this side of Canada, they dubbed it the Cabinet Mountains, for the sheer shelves of rock that loomed over the rivers below. In the interven- ing 200 years, the snowshoe technology used to cross the Cabinets may have changed, but little else has. e Cabinet Mountains Wil- derness protects almost 100,000 acres of subalpine lakes and knife- edge peaks in the heart of the range; separated from the wilderness by two-lane state Highway 56. e Scotchman Peaks Wilderness Study Area still needs an act of Congress to protect its 88,000 acres of rugged ridgelines and steep, brushy drainages. anks to a maritime-influenced climate, the Cabinets boast abundant precipitation; some Sno-Tel sites in the range routinely register the highest snowpack in Montana. Deep powder, coupled with trails easily accessed from the surrounding Kootenai, Clark Fork, and Bull River valleys, rate the Cabinets as one of the region's wildest winter destinations. THE CABINETS Billiard Table Mountain, in the west Cabinets, sports a fresh coat of early winter snow. article and photographs by AARON THEISEN T he thermometer read -2 degrees at the trailhead to the Ross Creek Cedars Scenic Area in western Montana. But three miles later and a thousand feet higher, among the scenic area's namesake cedars, it was a full 10 degrees colder, the product of a moisture-trapping canyon that no doubt nursed these trees' gargantuan growth. My wife, sister, and I, who had all snowshoed to the grove that New Year's Eve, struggled to suck in breaths of frigid air. But if the cold hadn't left us speechless, the trees would have: massive west- ern redcedars up to eight feet in diameter and 175 feet tall — big enough to stand up inside their heart-rotted trunks. A campfire that night at the historic Bull River Guard Station slowly melted the chill of that cedar grove, but the awe of the place stayed in our bones.