if you find yourself staying in Montana Wilson peak is definitely a hike you should take. from the enjoyable views to the exhilarating heights this is definitely one of my favorite hikes I've ever done. this hike has a 10700 ft high summit and over 12 miles of terrain to go up and down. the views are over alpine rivers and streams through the meadows and valleys making this truly a beautiful hike.

this hike might seem daunting at first but don't let the numbers scare you, as long as you are moderately in shape you should be able to summit the mountain in around 4 hours and be back down about the same.

the hike itself is winding back in forth through gullies until you reach Dudley lake where you have to make a decision on how to summit. we decided to go right to the lake and go up the right-hand ridge.

when you start ascending that part it's really where it starts getting hard, you can't see the path that well and you have to do some bushwhacking to get to the ridge. from there it is about a mile up a ridge face until you reach the base of the summit.

from the base of the summit, you have to almost free climb to the actual summit. if you don't feel comfortable with your upper body and climbing strength this is where I would recommend that you turn back as this is really the only dangerous part.

when you eventually scale the 75 feet of vertical hiking you reach the glorious summit. you would be standing on one of the tallest peaks in the big sky area and can look for miles. the summit is only really about a 17 by 10 foot square of rock and has large gusts of wind on the top so I wouldn't suggest spending a lot of time up there

when you finally decide to let go of your multi-hour achievement and come back to us mere mortals you have to decide where to descend. when my group descended we went straight down the rockface back to a lake. it was deceivingly steep and took us about 2 hours to get down safely.

after you get to the lake its straight back down to Dudley or you can go off the beaten trail a bit and touch one of the few small glaciers. i will admit we had a snowball fight up there. if you brought your swimming suit or your birthday suit you can even take a little swim in the absolutely frigid mountain lakes. I would suggest this as it is invigorating after hiking all day.