Sep 13, 2019 — The standard route for Hilgard Mountain seems to come from its northern ridge which requires driving a rough road to reach, but I noticed the Great Western Trail leads from the west down to the southern saddle of Hilgard Mountain. I wanted to attempt this slightly longer route, mostly because it seemed to be a more scenic option and would avoid bad driving. I wasn't sure it would be viable because I was concerned about having to do some heavy bushwhacking, but the route ended up being quite pleasant if you're okay with a fair amount of Class 2 boulder-hopping.
Starting from an unmarked trailhead, I set out through some pretty meadows. Almost immediately I was off-trail. Cattle-carved lines all over the place made it hard to stay on the true Great Western Trail. It didn't help that the dotted line on Google Maps reresenting the trail is incorrectly placed. My advice would be to try to stick to the remains of a doubletrack. Single track trails are just confusing game trails. The track on my attached map isn't totally correct since the trail wasn't clear, but it's pretty close to the true trail. The route leads through forests and meadows as it works up to the southern side of Hilgard Mountain.
Once at the saddle before the Great Western Trail started descending to the east, I left the trail and headed northeast where I had to do some very light bushwhacking for a bit and cross a low barbed wire fence. Shortly after this fence, a few hundred feet of Class 2 boulder-hopping slowed progress. There were sections that were better than others, but there was quite a bit more than I anticipated. As the grade of the southern slope of Hilgard Mountain became less steep, the boulder-hopping gave way to an easy grassy slope that led me slowly to the summit.
Coming back was a bit trickier than going up because following the Great Western Trail was more difficult on the way down somehow.
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