Trailhead Location: ///grew.rural.streamline
The Beattie St. Trailhead has a very nice parking area with ADA parking spaces, a picnic table, vault toilet, trash, etc. This is a very popular spot to start your walk on Mount Acsension. The main trail from the trailhead is a combination of Pay Dirt and Prickly Pear. The trail acsends from the parking lot and after a few short twists, branches off to the left to become Prickly Pear while the right branch becomes Paydirt.
Prickly Pear takes you over towards Bompart Hill and on the way you will run into Meatloaf and Easy Rider trails. Meatloaf, and its small but lovely system of trails, are neighborhood access trails and is not mapped or described on this site as none of the access points provide adequate parking. The PPLT map details these trails nicely.
If you take the Pay Dirt route, you will climb to a clearing where nearly all the trails on the frontside of Mount Ascension come together – Pay Dirt, Little Moab, Eagle Scout, Archery Range, Easy Rider, and Pail Rider all branch off from this spot. So, really- you can get anywhere on Mount Ascension from here.
See all Mount Ascension’s named trails here
Prickly Pear trail
The Prickly Pear trail takes you from Beattie St. to Lime Kiln Rd. Along the way, you skirt Bompart Hill. Click the image below to see a larger view of the trail.
Pay Dirt trail
The Pay Dirt trail is a fun little climb up to Malfunction Junction. The trail goes past several pits that are, presumably, dig sites from Helena’s mining past. The lower portion of the trail is muley-twisty and the upper portion is where the pits begin to show up along the side of the trail.
