Cherry Peak

Cherry Peak is a 37,862-acre Inventoried Roadless Area in Lolo National Forest, cut into the Coeur d'Alene Mountains on the western edge of Montana. The terrain rises from the Clark Fork lowlands to the peaks of Cherry Peak, Eddy Mountain, Drury Peak, Penrose Peak, and Greenwood Hill along the C C Divide. The roadless block centers on the Cherry Creek drainage and the long ridge that separates Cherry Creek from Flat Rock Creek and Swamp Creek to the south. Water radiates outward through a dense network of named streams — Short Creek, Outlaw Creek, Cameron Creek, Flat Rock Creek, Burnt Flats Creek, Blackburn Creek, Northup Creek, East Fork Cherry Creek, Dee Creek, West Fork Swamp Creek, Slow Creek, Lynx Creek, Quartz Creek, Eddy Creek, Malone Creek, and Cherry Creek itself. Four small subalpine lakes — Tuffys Lake, Quail Lake, Outlaw Lake, and Acorn Lake — hold snow water in cirques below the ridgelines.

Forest cover shifts sharply with elevation and aspect. Northern Rockies Ponderosa Pine Woodland and Northern Rockies Foothill Pine Wooded Steppe carry ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), antelope bitterbrush (Purshia tridentata), arrowleaf balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata), and Lewis' mock orange (Philadelphus lewisii) on warm lower slopes. Mid-slope Southern Rockies Mixed Conifer Forest combines Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), grand fir (Abies grandis), lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta), and western larch (Larix occidentalis) with thinleaf huckleberry (Vaccinium membranaceum), thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus), ocean spray (Holodiscus discolor), and mallow-leaf ninebark (Physocarpus malvaceus). Rocky Mountain Wet and Dry Subalpine Spruce-Fir Forest and Northern Rockies Subalpine Woodland and Parkland occupy the higher slopes, carrying whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) on wind-scoured ridges. Northern Rockies Western Larch Savanna and Rocky Mountain Aspen Forest break the forest with common beargrass (Xerophyllum tenax), glacier lily (Erythronium grandiflorum), and common cowparsnip (Heracleum maximum).

The cirque lakes and cold headwater streams support bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus), brown trout (Salmo trutta), and long-toed salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum). American dipper (Cinclus mexicanus) works the fast water of Cherry Creek, while canyon wren (Catherpes mexicanus) calls from the rock outcrops above Poacher Gulch. Lewis's woodpecker (Melanerpes lewis) works the open ponderosa stands on the lower benches; varied thrush (Ixoreus naevius), Pacific wren (Troglodytes pacificus), brown creeper (Certhia americana), and chestnut-backed chickadee (Poecile rufescens) move through the mixed-conifer interior. Snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) supports the Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) that hunts in dense timber. Bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) use the rocky breaks along the Clark Fork, and North American wolverine (Gulo gulo luscus) and grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) range the high country. Turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) soars the ridge thermals above Cherry Peak. Portions of this area fall within the potential range of several federally listed species; see the Conservation section for details.

A rider moving up Cherry Creek from the Clark Fork passes through Douglas-fir and grand fir forest, then into western larch and lodgepole as the trail climbs toward Sacajawea Peak. At Flat Rock Ridge, the canopy breaks into subalpine parkland, and the small cirque lakes — Outlaw, Acorn, Quail, and Tuffys — reflect the ridges of Cherry Peak and Drury Peak. From the C C Divide, the Coeur d'Alene Mountains open westward in successive ridges.

The Cherry Peak country lies within the traditional homelands of the Salish, Pend d'Oreille, and Kootenai peoples, whose seasonal travel, hunting, and gathering patterns long crossed the Clark Fork watershed that forms the lowland margins of the area.

European-era land use accelerated rapidly in the late nineteenth century. Mineral and Sanders counties — where Cherry Peak lies — were reshaped by silver, copper, and gold mining camps and by the push of transcontinental railroads through the St. Regis and Clark Fork valleys. Sawmills such as the Mann Lumber Company at Henderson operated "near present-day Cabin City Campground in the Lolo National Forest" [5]. Industrial logging to support the booming copper industry reached into the valleys draining the roadless area; the Anaconda Copper Mining Company sawmill at Bonner, together with allied mills at Polleys in Missoula and J. Neils in Libby, defined timber demand across the Northern Region [2]. Kenneth Ross served as General Manager of the Lumber Department of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company [2]. The Cherry Creek valley immediately below the roadless block hosted placer mining, homesteading, and ranching camps through the same period.

Federal stewardship followed quickly. "Congress responded to the threat, authorizing the National Forest reserves in 1891" [4], and "by 1897 millions of acres had been set aside, including the Flathead and the Bitterroot reserves in Montana" [4]. "In 1905 Congress created the National Forest Service and hired rangers to patrol these vast public lands" [4]. "The Forest Homestead Act, passed in June 1906, opened land within the national forests" [1]. "Three months later, a presidential proclamation established the Lolo Forest Reserve (now Lolo National Forest)" [1].

The country around Cherry Peak became a laboratory of early American forestry. "Creation of the National Forest Service in 1905 brought Elers Koch, one of the nation's first professional foresters, to inspect and evaluate the Forest Reserves of Montana and Wyoming" [3]. "Appointed Forest Supervisor of the Bitterroot and Lolo National Forests in 1907, Koch happened upon the abandoned homestead of a German settler named Savennach" [3], a short distance west of the Cherry Peak country. "Work began in 1908 and just as the first pine seedlings were ready for transplanting in 1910, fire swept through the region scorching 3 million acres of timberland" [3]. That catastrophic fire season — remembered as the 1910 "Big Burn" — drove the Forest Service's commitment to fire suppression and triggered the construction of thousands of fire lookout towers across the Northern Region [4], including lookouts on the high ridges now within the Cherry Peak area. Savenac Nursery was rebuilt and eventually supplied seedlings to reforest burned ground; "The Civilian Conservation Corps rebuilt and modernized the facility a final time between 1932 and 1948" [3], and Savenac operated until regional reorganization brought closure in 1969 [3].

Cherry Peak is a 37,862-acre Inventoried Roadless Area within Lolo National Forest, managed from the Plains/Thompson Falls Ranger District in the USFS Northern Region and protected under the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

Vital Resources Protected

• Cold Headwater Stream Integrity: The 37,862-acre Cherry Peak roadless block protects Cherry Creek and its tributaries — Outlaw Creek, Flat Rock Creek, Burnt Flats Creek, East Fork Cherry Creek, Northup Creek, West Fork Swamp Creek, and Lynx Creek — along with four subalpine lakes (Tuffys, Quail, Outlaw, Acorn). Without roads, these streams retain cold water temperatures, clean gravel spawning substrate, and intact channel-riparian connectivity that bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus) — designated critical habitat — require for spawning and rearing. The roadless condition also preserves the canyon-wall habitat of American dipper and the cold-water invertebrate fauna that anchors the aquatic food web flowing into the Clark Fork.

• Interior Forest Canopy and Snowshoe Hare Habitat: Southern Rockies Mixed Conifer Forest covers more than half the area, with Rocky Mountain Wet and Dry Subalpine Spruce-Fir Forest across the upper slopes. The roadless condition preserves closed-canopy forest structure and coarse woody debris — the conditions snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) depends on and, through hare, the conditions that support Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis). Continuous forest also preserves interior-forest bird communities (varied thrush, brown creeper, Pacific wren) and late-seral habitat for North American wolverine and grizzly bear.

• Subalpine Parkland, Whitebark Pine, and Rare Plant Refugia: Northern Rockies Subalpine Woodland and Parkland carries whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) on the C C Divide, Cherry Peak, and Drury Peak ridgelines. The roadless condition preserves stand connectivity and climate refugia for five-needle pines, and it protects populations of cat's ear (Calochortus elegans) — vulnerable on the IUCN Red List — and Spalding's catchfly (Silene spaldingii), federally threatened, on the open grassland benches. These populations are highly sensitive to ground disturbance, invasive species, and fire-regime alteration.

Potential Effects of Road Construction

• Sedimentation and Bull Trout Habitat Loss: Road construction across the steep Coeur d'Alene slopes produces chronic fine-sediment delivery from cut slopes and fills into Cherry Creek, Flat Rock Creek, and the East Fork Cherry. Sediment smothers the clean gravel substrate that bull trout require for redd construction and egg incubation, and culvert crossings fragment the connectivity between spawning reaches and downstream rearing habitat. Soil-erosion and sedimentation are documented as primary threats to bull trout in Lolo National Forest watersheds, and recovery requires decades of flushing flows.

• Invasive Species and Fire-Regime Conversion: Disturbed road corridors carry spotted knapweed, sulphur cinquefoil, Dalmatian toadflax, common St. John's-wort, and other invasive forbs into previously intact grassland, ponderosa, and larch savanna communities. Invasions alter the fine-fuels layer and shorten fire-return intervals, and they are the single documented primary threat to Spalding's catchfly populations on open benches. Fire-regime changes compound the stress on whitebark pine, which is already declining under blister rust pressure.

• Fragmentation of Lynx, Grizzly, and Wolverine Habitat: New road corridors through the subalpine spruce-fir and mixed-conifer forest convert forest interior to edge habitat, and documented avoidance by Canada lynx, grizzly bear, and wolverine functionally shrinks core habitat well beyond the roadbed. Connectivity between the Cherry Peak roadless block and adjacent roadless areas along the C C Divide cannot be restored once roads are built — late-seral forest structure returns only on multi-century timescales.

Cherry Peak occupies 37,862 acres of the Coeur d'Alene Mountains in Lolo National Forest. Access concentrates at the Munson Creek Trailhead, with Fishtrap Lake Campground providing the nearest developed camping.

Hiking and horse packing dominate summer use. The CC Divide Trail (#404, 18.3 miles through this area) runs the high spine and connects Cherry Peak to the adjacent Mt. Bushnell roadless complex. The Flat Rock Ridge Trail (#254, 5.5 miles) and Flat Rock Creek Trail (#253, 5.1 miles) provide ridge and creek-bottom approaches to the southern edge. The West Fork Swamp Creek Trail (#1400, 5.4 miles) climbs from the Swamp Creek drainage to the C C Divide, and the Sacajawea Peak Trail (#385, 5.2 miles) reaches a named summit. Creek-bottom routes — Cherry Creek (#498, 3.1 miles), Dee Creek (#398, 1.6 miles), and the Burnt Flat Divide (#240, 2.5 miles) — carry stock and foot travel through mixed-conifer forest into the high country. Short spur trails to the cirque lakes include Acorn Lake (#386, 1.7 miles) and Outlaw Lake (#1131, 1.3 miles). The Eddy Ridge Trail (#1130, 2.5 miles) is designated hiker-only and climbs to the Eddy Mountain ridgeline.

Winter recreation uses the DeBorgia/Knox Pass route (SNO-70.12, 13.8 miles) for snow travel across the Coeur d'Alene high country. The mountainous terrain supports backcountry skiing and snowshoe travel across the subalpine benches in deep-snow years.

Fishing is directed to the small cirque lakes and headwater streams. Tuffys Lake, Quail Lake, Outlaw Lake, and Acorn Lake carry trout fisheries accessible only by foot or horse inside the roadless block. Cherry Creek and Flat Rock Creek support bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus) — catch-and-release where encountered — and brown trout (Salmo trutta). Montana statewide fishing regulations apply.

Hunting falls under Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks regulations. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) use the mixed-conifer forest across the area, and bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) occupy the rocky breaks along the Clark Fork under limited-entry permit. Ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus) is the primary upland bird; American black bear is taken in season.

Birding is strong at the low-elevation eBird hotspots. Thompson Falls (town) records 191 species across 510 checklists; Thompson Falls Reservoir adds 143 species, and Saint Regis Community Park and Thompson Falls–Island Park each record 100 species. Inside the roadless block, canyon wren (Catherpes mexicanus) calls from the rock outcrops of Poacher Gulch, American dipper (Cinclus mexicanus) feeds in the fast water of Cherry Creek, Lewis's woodpecker (Melanerpes lewis) works open ponderosa stands, and varied thrush (Ixoreus naevius) and Pacific wren (Troglodytes pacificus) call from the interior forest.

Wildlife viewing and photography follow the trail network — bighorn sheep on the lower ridges above the Clark Fork; western larch color along Cherry Creek in late October; cat's ear and glacier lily blooms through the subalpine meadows in July. Small cirque lakes catch the reflection of Cherry Peak and Drury Peak at dawn.

What makes these activities possible is the absence of newly constructed road corridors. The cirque lakes carry self-sustaining trout fisheries only because they are hard to reach; bighorn sheep, lynx, and grizzly continue to use the area because of unfragmented security cover. Road construction would shorten the foot approach to the cirques, convert backcountry hunting districts to front-country, and disperse the wildlife concentrations that currently support viewing.