The Greenhorn Gulch trails are a series of trails between Hailey and Ketchum just to the East of Highway 75. There is a huge series of trails for hikers, mountain bikers and motorcycles. I had seen and decided to do the smaller 10 mile Greenhorn-Imperial loop. I had also seen and read about Mahoney Butte which the trails pass around and decided if it wasn't too bad to give it a shot also. There isn't a whole lot written about Mahoney other than it was pretty difficult for just being a butte. Stuff like, "This is a small mountain, but a very tough one indeed". https://www.summitpost.org/. I went around to the west side and got lucky that there was a fairly easy route to the top after the expected long, off trail bushwhacking and the steep, loose scree before and during the ascent. Since I did eventually make it to the top, I decided to go back down to the trail and continue on and finish the Greenhorn-Imperial Loop. It ended up being pretty long, especially after being fairly tired doing the off-trail ascent of Mahoney and the fact that I had hiked 11 miles the day before doing Bald Mountain. The total round trip was about 13 miles. The trail does have some nice views of the Pioneers and also Kelly Peak from the north. I might do that loop on a mountain bike sometime and if I'm really looking for punishment, I might try Mahoney again but use a closer trail and go directly to the chute up instead of going around the base looking for ways up which was a time-consuming process. Mahoney Butte is 7,904 feet high.
Mahoney Butte and Greenhorn-Imperial Loop
