Anaconda Pintler Wilderness

One of the jewels of the Northern Rockies, this Wilderness takes its name from the Anaconda Range and Charles Ellsworth Pintler, a Big Hole Valley settler of the late 1800s. It lies in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge and Bitterroot National Forests and straddles the Continental Divide along the crest of the Anaconda Range in southwestern Montana, between the Bitterroot Valley to the northwest and the Big Hole Valley to the south. Streams and rivers here drain to the Bitterroot and Big Hole Rivers as well as Rock Creek. While the Anaconda Range's permanent snowfields today are modest, the Wilderness protects a spectacular array of glacially carved landforms: tarn-pocked cirques, huge U-shaped valleys, knife-edged ridges (aretes), and moraines. Elevations stretch from 5,100 feet along the canyon bottoms to 10,893 feet at West Goat Peak, one of several 10,000-plus-footers in the Wilderness. Canyon bottoms support riparian forests and willow thickets, while vegetation on the mountain slopes ranges from sagebrush in the foothills through spruce-fir and pine forests to subalpine communities of quaking aspen, whitebark pine, and alpine larch. Along the High Divide, bare rock, tundra, and snowfields reign. Native wildlife includes mule deer, elk, moose, mountain goat, bighorn sheep, wolverine, gray wolf, puma, black bear, and the odd grizzly bear. U.S. Highway 93 and Montana Highways 38, 1, and 43 provide access to numerous trails, and a 45-mile-long portion of the Continental Divide Trail cleaves the heart of the Wilderness. Mountaineering opportunities abound on the high peaks. Backpackers should practice Leave No Trace ethics especially among the alpine lakes, which are sensitive to overuse.