The 15.3 mile Foote Creek Trail starts from the same trailhead as the Steeple Mesa Trail, near the Hannagan Administrative Camp. It follows an old logging road along the ridge top for about 5 miles. About 1/2 mile past where it meets the Grant Creek Trail at P-Bar Lake, the road dwindles to a path that heads down Foote Creek into a steadily deeper gorge. Part way down, the gorge gets too narrow so the trail takes a detour over a steep saddle and then heads back down into the canyon again. The views get better and better as you pass Horse Ridge Trail and Tutt Creek Trail: Castle Rock standing tall and stark to the north, steep red cliffs at the juncture of Foote Creek's Right Fork with the main streambed... A couple more miles of criss-crossing the creek and the trail heads up out of the canyon to the north of the drainage. This makes for easier going as you skirt the southern edge of Foote Creek Mesa and then drop over the rim of the Blue River Canyon and head down to the Blue Administrative Camp.

No mechanized or motorized vehilces (including mountain bikes). Foote Creek has intermittent pools of water but Cedar Springs flows year-round. P-Bar Lake is primarily for stock use.

Elevation: 9,200' to 5,520'

Access: On US 191, go to the south end of Hannagan Meadow, about 23 miles south of Alpine.. Turn east on Forest Road 29A and go to the parking lot by the Steeple Mesa - Foote Creek Trailhead. Or, to access the lower end of the trail (and make the hike up the hill), go to the Blue Administrative Site on Forest Road 281 and use the trailhead to the west.

USGS Maps: Bear Mountain, Beaverhead, Hannagan Meadow

Trail map