Freezout Creek is located in the Beaverhead National Forest just south of Ennis, MT, in the Gravelly Mountain Range. This trail is just under 5 miles long and is one of three trails that make up the 15-mile loop back to Standard Creek Road. This trail, along with many of the surrounding trails, offers incredible views of the surrounding mountain ranges and the valleys below. The sound of the wind through the tall pines and rattling of the Aspen leaves along with the babbling of the creeks will make you want to come back and continue to explore even more of what these mountains have to offer. There are hundreds of miles of dirt roads on this stretch of the Mountain Range from down in the valleys to nearly 10,000 feet up for everyone in the family to enjoy.
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Head south on Highway 287 for 33 miles to the West Fork rest area, Lyons Bridge, and turn right. Continue south on West Fork Madison (209) for 2.3 miles. Turn right on Standard Creek (237) and continue for 2.9 miles to Freezout Creek (8373). The trail starts here.
We hit many trails this afternoon looking for critters. We started out crossing the Madison River at Hutchins Bridge, heading up West Fork Madison to Standard Creek, turning left at Soap Creek, and following it through Flatiron Mountain and Freezeout Creek, making the loop back to Standard Creek. The trails were in great shape. Once back at Standard Creek Road, we were amazed to have seen nine deer on this short loop, so we decided to head back down Standard Creek to West Fork Madison, where we saw a doe and two tiny fawns, then up Jackpine Gulch to East Bench. We had to clear a couple of downed trees from East Bench; otherwise, there were no issues with this trail. We saw two more deer on the way in and hiked around the end of the trail for a few. It was a surprise looking through the charred tree at how close we were to Cliff Lake. Headed back out, we took Jackknife out to Cliff Lake Bench and watched the sunset. Driving out in the twilight, we saw a couple of elk and a few more doe and fawn.
All in all, on this trip we saw 19 of these four-legged critters. That's usually pretty close to our tally for an entire summer. For one evening, that was amazing!
Freezeout Creek is 1 of 3 trails that when connected comprise a full loop of a trail that will start and end off the Standard Creek trail. There are some fun little offshoot trails specifically on Freezeout Creek along with a midway stop that has some spectacular views. On the day I rode this trail it was dry and in great shape so no real obstacles to speak of.
Today was a beautiful warm sunny day in the mountains. Writing this the day after we traveled this trail, the high today is 32 degrees and received several inches of snow. Plan accordingly for sudden either changes this time of year.
This is one of the three great trails to make the loop back to Standard Creek Road and a beautiful way to spend an afternoon looking for that great shot of critters or mountains. We saw a moose on this loop, a deer, and got a great pic of this bird of prey. The views of the Centennial Mountains are excellent! We found several patches of wild strawberries and enjoyed the views of the wildflowers.
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Cory grew up traveling the logging roads outside Durango, CO, with his dad for his woodcutting business and fell in love with everything about the outdoors. He's moved around a lot since then, from several rural areas of Southern California to Montana, Wyoming to Arizona, even living and working on a gold mine in Nevada for several years. In all these areas, he has explored several thousand miles of old dirt roads and trails and many old mines and ghost towns. Located in the Mohave Desert of AZ in the winter and the Madison River Valley of MT in the summer.
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