During our move across the country, we knew we wanted to get at least one hike in. Initially, we thought it might be at Yellowstone, but it made the most sense for us to stop in Big Sky, Mt. Big Sky is beautiful. After doing a little bit of research, we stumbled upon Cinnamon Mountain, which had everything we were looking for.
About Cinnamon Mountain: Cinnamon Mountain Hike Trail is used for hiking, mountain biking or horseback riding. From Big Sky, it’s about 10 miles south.
The hike is about 4.25 miles out (8.5 miles roundtrip with roughly 2600 feet of elevation gain in 4.25 miles. For the most part, most of the hike up Cinnamon Mountain is dirt roads, hikeable and unlike east coast trails, there isn’t any scrambling. The Forest Service does an incredible job preserving the trail.
Our Day: We got to the Cinnamon Mountain Trailhead around 1 pm. It was slightly later than I would have liked, but we had a slow morning. The parking lot was relatively full, but there were a few spots in the weeds left. When we started a couple coming down said: watch out for the bugs! The bugs are terrible! Coming from New Jersey and the Pinelands, I wasn’t sure what that meant. It was buggy, but they didn’t really bite, just swarm around you.
During the first couple of miles, you’re surrounded by wildflowers. It’s beautiful and I’m not used to seeing so many flowers along the trail. Around 1.5 miles, you reach Cinnamon Creek. The miles up are a steady incline and you never really feel like you’re climbing a lot at once.
There is a junction around 2.5 miles and we made a right to follow the hiking-only trail to the Cinnamon Mountain summit. At this point, you’ve started to get above the treeline, and you’ll begin to see a beautiful view.
Around 3.7, you see the observation tower and fire lookout tower, but you still have half a mile to go. The view at the top of Cinnamon Mountain is worth it, though. You get a 360-degree view of the Rocky Mountains. The Summit of Cinnamon Mountain is genuinely one of the most beautiful hikes I’ve done.
After relaxing at the top and enjoying the Cinnamon Mountain Lookout, I told my husband I was going to “crush it” to the bottom. I wanted to power down because it felt like it took “forever,” plus I didn’t want to be out late.
It took us roughly 1 hour and fifty minutes to get to the Summit of Cinnamon Mountain and 1:30 to get back down.
Notes:
In total, we saw about five other parties the entire hike on Cinnamon Mountain. It was a lot less busy than expected.
It was also one of the most beautiful hikes I’ve done. If you are ever near Big Sky, Montana, I highly recommend it.
You can see more hikes here.
Questions for you:
What is the most beautiful place you’ve hiked?
Have you been to Montana?
25 years ago I spent 6 weeks in America, hiked Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Zion, Death Valley, all the tourist hotspots. Loved it 😀
Been to Glacier National Park twice & it’s a hikers paradise. Want to go back again & do some more hiking as I haven’t hiked much there. Just The touristy stuff (still incredible views). Hiked at Grand Lake Colorado a number of years ago.
I really want to get back to Montana and check out Glacier National Park. I tried to make it fit into our trip but it was just too far north.