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We're headed out to the Cabinet Mountain wilderness in Western Montana this weekend, just a little 2 day trip. It's funny since Idaho is so narrow we spend more time in the next state over than we do in the state that's right next door.
One destination is a revisit of the Ross Creek Cedars, last time we visited was in March of this year and there was still deep snow enough that we needed to park by the highway and walk four miles in. Beautiful views, but it wore us out and I think for part of it we were being investigated by a big cat.
This time I suspect we'll just drive straight to the grove so there won't be much hiking there...
But after marking the grove off our checklist we'll head up the road to a proper hiking destination. We're aiming for Leigh Lake or Little Spar Lake .
Saturday night we'll be staying at the Libby Hostel in Libby MT where we've stayed before. Beds are typical hostel; just a big upstairs room with 10+ vinyl-covered bunk mattresses and a couple more located throughout the building - but it's inexpensive and a short walk to a hot meal and a cold drink or there's a huge kitchen if we feel like cooking something for ourselves. Not exactly roughing it!
Sunday we're going to try bicycling to the north shore of Kootenai Falls, if that's possible. I saw a couple mentions online that it can be done and it looks plausible at least most of the way. Failing that we can chain the bikes to a tree and walk the last bit.
Look forward to posting some inspirational photos here upon our return, or you can stalk my instagram for (when we have service) more immediate random junk from the road or under the hood.
If the 1st picture is any indication of what's to come, I'm excited to see the pictures that you post. It looks beautiful!!!
We had an amazing time, got back a little earlier than expected due to some closed-gate related changes to our Sunday plans.
Saturday's hiking was excellent! The smoke however has been a bit difficult to live with.
For comparison with that photo above:
Here's what https://fire.airnow.gov/ has to say about today in America:
Still we were able to find beauty by looking hard enough 🙂
The trail up to the second Spar Lake started out nice enough
but about 1.5 miles in it was difficult to move at all and felt like a tropical jungle.. humid, no wind made it down to us
We had to give up.
It seems like once there was a road most/all the way to Little Spar Lake, but it's long gone. This bridge remains, about a mile from what now serves as a parking area.
Here is the parking area:
No shortage of snacks along the trail (it's just a cell phone camera, I apologize for the lack of focus)
I don't know what these are, they looked tasty but didn't want to risk them being toxic:
Amtrak station in nearby Libby, and the sun
Here's a short video over Spar Lake where we did a little swimming in the crystal clear water just before sunset
@shovel That looks absolutely breathtaking! Tropical Jungle indeed. Looks like something outa Predator! I was half-expecting Arnold to pop out and yell at me to "Get to the Choppa!!!"
@shovel subscribed. 😉
Dig that shot of the bridge to nowhere. And, regarding the fires, there is another real-time map I refer to for the state of the fire situation in the USA. I'll have to find it.