Sage Wall and Trails

Clouds gone, the mountain appears – Zen proverb

The Sage Wall and Trails are now closed for the 2024 season. Check back with us next year when we hope to begin registrations around April, 2025!

Buried beneath the surface of Sage Mountain Center is a foundation of granite and crystal. Above the earthen surface are magnificent rock formations of magical scale and form. Our lives here have been embedded within these formations that are a part of the little known 75-million-year-old Boulder Batholith of North America.

The Boulder Batholith is a relatively small batholith in southwestern Montana. A batholith is a mass of plutonic rock larger than 100 square kilometers (40 square miles) in area, which forms from cooled magma  deep in the Earth’s crust. The Batholith was named for the prominent rounded boulders that typify its landscape and the result of the weathering of fractured granite. Pondering the intricate and seemingly intentional formations, one cannot help but wonder if they are all naturally occurring. People are traveling to this area from all over the world and are expressing a variety of views which include: a sacred site of timeless spiritual healing, an ancient structure built by early beings, or just another pile of rocks. We hope that our on-going scientific research will aid in answering some of these questions. Interestingly, the largest quartz crystal in Montana was also discovered here and currently resides in the Mineral Museum at the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology in Butte.

In 1996 while hiking around the property one day we discovered the “Sage Wall”. The Wall is a 275’ long x 24’ high jaw-dropping marvel. In order to make wall more accessible and highlight its beauty, we created a moderate two-mile trail system. Additional features of the trail include 400-year-old Douglas fir trees, the spectacular views of the Ruby Valley 20 miles away, and the Highland Mountain Range sitting at 10,000’ elevation.

One of the gifts of living among ancient geological features is they connect us to a broader sense of time. Instead of thinking back 600 years when Europeans colonized North America or even 300,000 years to the beginning of modern homo sapiens, we can observe and touch material that is millions of years old. The human life span of about 80 years does not seem so important in the context of geological time. Being here brings awareness of the precious nature and possibility of the moment, as well as a sense of being part of the timeless family of all things.

Cost

Sage Wall and Trail Hike (on your own): 2-hour reservation slots, $99/person. 17 years old and younger are free. (Do you want one of the owners and discoverers of Sage Wall to guide you or your group on the trail? Add $100/group.)

Trail Hikes and Tours are by appointment only through email. Please leave pets at home.

For more details regarding SMC and Sage Wall, visit our Frequently Asked Questions page.

Smoky Quartz