Spanish Peaks and Spanish Creek Falls

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Shane (a fellow mathematician at MSU) and I took a nice hike up thru the Spanish Peaks by Ted Turners Flying D Ranch. It's a beautiful drive and it's right out of town off from Montana's most dangerous and deadly road, US Highway 191. It was a nice little ride in to the full parking lot of the Spanish Creek trail head and a short 3.5 mile hike up to the Spanish Creek water fall. Despite the large amounts of vehicles in the parking lot, we encountered no hikers on the way up to the falls, and only one train of pack horses and campers going up to the mountain lake for the July 4th weekend. The wild flowers (wild roses, sticky geraniums, lupines, blue bells, and more) were out in true form, unfortuntately the only good picture that came out was of some wild roses. On our way out we encountered four people hiking their ski equipment up to Gallatin Peak (the mountain with the Australia looking snow clump on it) to do some skiing this weekend, those crazy fools! All and all it was a good hike and I'm glad that the trail wasn't as packed as the parking lot. If you live in Bozeman and haven't hiked around these Spanish Peaks, you're truely missing out and it's a short little drive past Four Corners.

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Photos

Spanish Creek Waterfall
with falling yellow flower.

Don't Jump
A very precarious overlook over Spansh Creek Falls.

Spanish Creek
Here's the Spanish Creek with the Spanish Peaks in the background.

Gallatin Peak
The largest peak in the valley! It's so big Australia fits on its side!

The Drive In
Flying D Ranches Driveway and a view of the Gallatin Valley Pass (Highway 191 goes between those two mountain ranges)

One of Ted's pets
Flying D Free Ranging Bison Baby! SO TASTY!

Rock N Roll
A rockslide by a nice cliff.

Shane
An Improptu shot of Shane and the Spanish Peak.

Some Fool
sitting above a waterfall

Wild Roses
They smell amazing!