Friends Ed Harrod and Janet Schaller accompanied me on this trip to further explore hiking opportunities in the North Bank Habitat Management Area. My idea was to park at the West Entrance Parking and take the Blacktail Ridge Trail up to the South Knob. This route turned out to basically hiking up a road that took us along Blacktail Ridge to where it joined the Middle Ridge and then we continued to the top of the South Knob.

On the summit of South Knob it was a little too early for lunch so we continued north on the Middle Ridge to where we had a good viewpoint to stop and enjoy our lunch. We all kind of hated the idea of just retracing our steps back to the car, so we made it a loop hike by descending a ridgeline down into the Chasm Creek drainage and circling back to the car.

We had a great day of sunshine with lots of bird life: busy Juncos, beautiful Bluebirds, noisy Crows, bright Western Flickers, clever Stellar Jays, a swooping Northern Harrier, and a pair of soaring Red Tail Hawks.