Hamilton area

We spent 4th of July weekend in Missoula with some old friends. We enjoyed getting caught up in the whirlwind of their lives. It was big fun playing with their kiddos, catching up and getting to know Allie's family a little better. Thanks Claude and Allie for having us! After the long weekend of festivities, when everyone had to return to work, we headed back out into the wilderness.

Hamilton became our launching site for the next week of fun. Surrounding this little well to do town is lots of beautiful mountains. We spent the first day just exploring the area and getting a lay of the land. There are many creeks along hiking trails in the area and the water in all of them was running clear. Had run off finally settled down?

Lost Horse Creek-We spent our first night off a 4 wheel drive road. A slough separated our camp from the creek and was a flowin' due to high water. The water however was clear and Pat was eager to get in the river after a full week with no fishing (my Lord). I hung around camp while he fished. It was a nice spot other then the fact that someone before us had a bit of a fire accident. It appeared they had somehow managed to light there tent on fire with their stove which then spreed through the surrounding grass. The trees had burn marks about four feet high but had manged to withstand the fire. It looked as though the fire burnt itself out when it ran out of grass. The evidence left behind was a burnt up tent (really only the poles remained), the mettle frame of what I am guessing was a stove, and a fair amount of charred ground and trees. After fully investigating the fire, I hung in the hammock near the water, read and dosed.

Blodgette Creek- The following day we headed to Blodgette Creek trail head for a hike and of course some fishing.  It was a beautiful, dramatic hike through a granite canyon. We only hiked a few miles in as it was a HOT day and I am a woose. But don't fret, Pat did get some fishing in.

Sleeping Child Creek- That night we camped on Sleeping Child Creek so that Pat could get just a little more fishing in before the sun went down.

Como Lake-After a few hot days I was in need of a swim, so we spent a few hours at Como Lake which had a nice little beach/swimming area. Hopefully it was not too obvious that we were bathing...

East Fork of the Bitterroot/Martin creek- The following day we drove south a little further to Sula. We then followed the East Fork of the Bitterroot river into national forest. My dad had given us a bunch of his maps before we left and he had marked a camp on Martin Creek. We thought we'd check it out. I once again think we found his spot and called it home for the following 3 nights. This was a great area! Lots of creeks and hiking trail. Just a little jaunt from our camp there was a nice little beach on the creek that had such a good hole in it, even I found myself fishing. The fun thing about fishing in this area is the rivers are clear and the bugs are big .
The first day we hiked a little ways up Moose creek and explored around the camp. The following day we trekked into Fish lake (about a 12 mile hike round trip). We made it to the lake and only had to walk about the last mile and a half in snow and mud (a vast improvement from our other 'lake' hikes). Today we went down to the East Fork and Pat pulled larger cuttie after large cuttie out of the river. I think we could have stayed in this area for a few days longer but we ran out of food, so we decided it was time to move on. This is a place to come back to someday.

So, runoff seems to be slowing down. The snow line is slowly creeping its way up the mountains and we are enjoying the layed back lifestyle. We can't seem to move very fast any more. The day we did our 12 mile hike our plan was to get going early. It took us a good two hours to make oatmeal that morning and we didn't hit the trail til 10:45, our earliest outing yet.  My allergies have been in full swing the past few days so I have been a bit drugged up to counter my sneezing attacks. But other then a lil pollen in the air I have no complaints. We have about one more week in Montana before heading back to Wyoming.

Jewel basin and Echo lake

Introduction to Montana

Immediately after arriving in Montana we stopped in Dillon to get groceries. When we came out to the truck after shopping we found a flat tire. We rolled over to the free air, hoping we could drive it to be fixed. Unfortunately it was Sunday afternoon and the tire store was closed. So, Pat and I changed the tire. The good news is we now know that truck has everything needed to change a flat. The bad news, we needed to stick around town for the night to get our flat fixed in the morning. We drive through town to the KOA and discovered it was located right on the Beaverhead river. After setting up camp we went back into town to get Pat a fishing license. This was my first KOA experience and let me say I enjoyed myself. I took a dip in the pool and then a nice long show. I chatted on my phone and checked what was going on in the world on-line. Meanwhile Pat fished.

Before leaving on this trip Pat had ordered a solar charger. It was coming from Hong Kong and had not arrive before we left town. A friend of mine who is collecting our mail was kind enough to send it, general delivery, to Bozeman. She informed me that she had sent it and that it would arrive the following Tuesday. So,we had two days to play before picking it up. From the KOA we headed to Alder where my Dad had marked one of his favorite camp spots on our map. We drove through a beautiful ranching valley and into Beaverhead National Forest. We think we found the exact spot that had been described to us and it was a beaut! Unfortunately the Ruby river that ran through the area was totally blown out. We biked around and enjoyed a lovely evening. We thought about staying there for another night but our charger would be arriving and Pat wanted to come back on our way back down, when hopefully the river may be fishable. So in the morning we packed up and headed for Bozeman.

After picking up the charger and hanging around Bozeman for a few hours (getting a much needed milk shake) we headed into the hills to find a place to camp. It was already late afternoon so we decided to try and camp in the National Forest close to town. We drove up Hyalite Canyon which looked like a sure bet for camping. It was a beuatiful canyon but was PACKED with people. They where everywhere! We drove around for a while looking for somewhere to call home before becoming ovelry frustrated and giving up. We got the hell out town. We drove all the way to Butte and into the Flint Creak range before pulling of at a camp ground for the night. The Flint Creak range looked good because it has lots of hiking to small lakes. We knew we were gambling with the snow line, but hoped we would be able to get to one of the many lakes. In the morining we found that we could not. Stupid snow! So we decided to keep heading north.

We drove all the way up past Missoula into Clear Water state forest. There was a down poor as we drove that power washed the truck and removed all the bug guts on our windshield. We found a spot right on Clear Water River, maybe 200 feet off the road, tucked behind a few trees. Pat was excited to find some clear water that was not blown out. He jumped right into the river to fish. Toby and I took a little walk in the mud before it started to rain again, then we cuddled up with my book. Pat became gitty when at dusk there was a large mayflay hatch followed by caddis. I pulled him away from the river long enough to eat dinner with me in the rain. As we were standing around cleaning up from dinner, the hillbillies moved in. They made their presence known by honking at their dogs who were running alongside of their truck as they dronve. They pulled down our lil road and when they saw us camped their, rather then moving on, they positioned their trailer about 60 feet from us and parked. Another car followed them in. They started to pile out of the car; Mom, Dad, Grandma and three kids joined the two dogs who had been running around nearly being run over through out this whole charade. We took a seat on the tail gate and watched them in disbelief, giving them our best evil eye, which had no effect. They unloaded an amazing amount of junk. They set up a few tents, pulled out a full lawn furniture set and piles of fire wood. Not even a wave in our direction.... guess this was their spot, even if someone was already in it. We did our best to ignore them. Pat went back to fishing I crawled into the truck with Tobs and my book.

Today we continued north to Kalispell. We got a bit wet in the rains yesterday and decided we needed to find somewhere to stay for the next few days as 4th of July weekend in just around the bend. A friend of mine from high school now lives in Missoula so we made plans to meet up with him and his family on the 2nd. Until then we are camped in a privet RV/campground to dry out, shower, do some laundry and re-load. We figure the more time we wast before heading back down towards Wyoming the better chance we have of hiking to some of those mountain lakes we enjoy so much. We are very close to Glacier National Park. I look forward to enjoying the area tomorrow without worries of where we will sleep. There's a lot of snow up on the peaks around us, so we'll need to find a low hikes... I'm feeling the need for a nice long one.

Idaho

Upon arriving in Idaho we noticed vast contrast from Wyoming: sage brush and cows vs. potato farms.  We stopped in Driggs Id to get Pat a fishing license and me some bear spray and bells (I was a little nervous about camping with grizzly bears and the local paper in town had a front page article about grizzly encounters). We then headed for Warm River, a spring fed creek that promised good fishing despite run off. We drove around for a while looking for the perfect camp spot. The goal was to find somewhere to call home for the next few days. It was beautiful forest, low enough that the snow was all gone. Still very wet, but gorgeous. The wild flowers were in bloom and all the trees alive (no beetle kill). We found a nice spot out of the way, over looking warm river. We got out of the truck to set up camp and we were immediately swarmed by mosquitoes. I'm not talking a few bugs here and there... they were out for blood and there were a LOT of them. We danced around for a while trying to figure out what our next move should be. Maybe they where only around at dusk, maybe if we stay the night in the morning they will all be gone. After about 10 minuets of dancing and being eaten we decided it wasn't worth it and got the hell out of there. We stopped at a few other nice spots thinking maybe the mosquitoes wouldn't be there. No such luck. Eventually we parked in a pull off on the side of the road, moved from the cab of the truck to the back and called it a night... better luck tomorrow.

In the morning we set off for adventure. There was a trail that followed Warm River. We figure out that as long as we were covered in Deet and moving the mosquitoes pretty much left us alone. So we hiked, and Pat fished. It was a beautiful river with good fishing. I kept hiking while he fished and read a little. It was a great morning. That afternoon we found yet another great camp spot in the area, and staying true to our rule immediately took a hike from camp, as we needed to keep moving to keep the bugs off. When we got to the end of our hike Toby rolled over on his back and I was petting his belly when I noticed red bumps all over him. That was the last straw. I made the executive decision to head into town and get a hotel room for the night. After a long shower and a greasy burger I was ready to face the world again.

The following day we headed west into the Salmon  National Forest hoping that we would be able to escape mosquito hell. We wondered our way into Leadore Id then headed for the hills. We drove up a 4-wheel drive road that was narrow, steep and rocky. We are slowly learning what are truck really can do.  After a while we hit some snow and decided to pull off the road and hike for a while to see if we should continue on this road to the lake or turn around. We soon determined that there was too much snow to drive up to the lake, but Pat wanted to get to the lake. So, we hiked through the snow. Let me tell you all right now that I will take hiking in the snow over swarms of mosquitoes any day! We hiked for about an hour and a half before giving up and turning around. It was a fun adventure, both the  4-wheeling and the snowy hike. Shorty after returning to the truck we found a nice camp and set up for a few days. We have been lazing around camp, biking around the dirt roads, and hiking through snow. We finally got some much needed R & R! This morning we started to pack up to head into Montana. I pulled the bed out to get all the dust out and found that we had acquired a mouse in our house!!! We spent the next few hours taking everything out of the back of the truck and cleaning up the mess our little mouse friend had made. We are now clean, reorganized and ready for whatever comes next. Montana... Here we come!

In Jackson WY

The four days we spent camping with my folks were rainy but fun. We ended up moving spots after two nights in hopes of out smarting the storm. After much wondering and staring at maps, we finally ended up in the flat tops, just outside of Yampa, where we had spent the previous spring camping together. This camp site was in the trees, so although we did not out run the storm we were better sheltered from it. We enjoyed two lazy days here before parting company.

Once on our own, Pat and I headed strait to Steam Boat to re-load on supplies and soak/shower at the hot springs. We then drove just outside town to camp for the night before heading to Wyoming to play in the Tetons. We found a dirt road out of Criag in BLM land to call home for the night. It was exciting to finally make use of our 4 wheel drive! This is where the weather started to turn and it has been sunshine ever sense.

In the morning we packed up and headed for the Tetons. I had planed a route off the beaten path into Jackson. The map said that the road we would be taking was a 'main connector', so I figured it would get us where we were going. We soon learned that 'main connector' in Wyoming does not necessarily mean paved. We wondered our way thought the country and camped  in the Bridger-Tetons National Forest in a great little spot all to our selves. The idea was that today we could continue our drive over a pass in the national forest and into Jackson. However, the dirt road became covered with snow once we started to gain altitude. So we turned around and took the main highway into town this morning.

Once we have everything we need in town we will head into Idaho for a few nights... Due to all the snow that has yet to melt, both hiking and fishing is a bit challenging. But we are enjoying the wilderness and each other. We have decided that taking our time as we head north makes the most sense as the snow still needs time to melt.

Day 1- Change of plans

Due to the excessively high water in the Big Horn (Running at 15,500 CFS, normally at 2,500 CSF) we decided to play it safe and find a new camping, fishing destination. While we probably would have been fine on the Big Horn, it did not seem like the time/place to learn how to row. So instead we packed up and headed for North Park Co. We left from Boulder following my Dad and Step-mom in their camper. We droved to Fort Collins and then up the Poudre Canyon and over Cameron Pass. It was a beautiful drive with lots to look at. We passed an elk, a moose, and a pronghorn antelope. The river was rageing and it looked like the guided raft trip had run into a little mayhem.
When we got over the pass the sky got very dark. Upon arriving in Walden the wind began a blowin' and it started coming down. We pulled over at a rest area to let the storm pass before making our way to Teal Lake, where we are now camped.
It was a rainy night. We had dinner in Dad's camper. The rain stopped long enough after dinner for us to have a nice fire and a few cocktails. The first night in the truck was a comfy one. The new foam mattress made it hard to drag my lazy butt out of bed this morning. When I finally did, Pat was already down at the lake torturing fish. The fish are small but there are a lot of them in the lake. Dad and Pat are now plotting to figure out how to catch one of the 'big' ones that must live near the bottom. We'll be here for a few days hanging with the folks and celebrating fathers day before heading off on our own. Already life has slowed down and our only worrys are weather. Doesn't get much better then this :)

Building the platform and loading the truck:

 First we put carpet down to help reduce noise from the wood platform while driving.

 Pat built to side boxes to go around the wheel wells and a T shaped support at the top of the truck bed. Each of these pieces is separate from the others to allow us to move them in and out of the truck with relative ease.

The middle piece of the platform has the left side cut out to fit the cooler while driving. We can then place the piece back in when we arrive somewhere and take the cooler out. This piece continues the center T support down the middle of the truck bed.

 The far back piece of platform is not attached to the rest so that it can be moved out of the way to allow us access to stuff stored in the way back.

 Here the whole platform is in. The square piece for the cooler hole is stacked to the right, where it will travel.

 The complete platform!

 We only stored supplies that we will not need as often in the far back. This is predominately backpacking supplies, extra books and games.  

And here is the loaded truck with the foam mattress and all our camping gear! We are ready to roll :)