Lolo Pass

It’s a lovely morning in the Wilderness Gateway Campground on Route 12 in Idaho, down the hill from Lolo Pass.  It’s so gorgeous here, with many hiking possibilities, that we decided to do a “layover” here, before heading to Southern Washington.

Two mornings ago, we said goodbye to our buddy, Tim, and headed Northwest, via I90, to Boseman, MT for lunch and a walk-around.  Very cool town.  Looks like a quieter version of Breckenridge and is an hour away from Big Sky, the ski resort.  Then we continued on I90 through Butte and up to Missoula.  Missoula looked like a decent enough town – bigger than Butte – and we hit it during rush hour, so although it certainly wasn’t Denver, the roads were sill clogged and trying to find the Loaf and Jug there was challenging and a nightmare to enter and egress with a 23-foot trailer. 

But soon after, (whew!) we escaped the congestion and headed West on Route 12 towards Idaho.  We pulled into a very nice, very quiet campground with spacious campsites and a well-manicured green lawn – we knew it was maintained well, due to its appearance and because of the two riding lawnmowers buzzing around us as we enjoyed our coffee the next morning.  Maybe they wanted us out of there to make room for longer-staying guests?  Besides that, it was perfect.  The campground also boasted a square-dancing center, which we thought might be fun to observe.  Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, there was no dance the evening we were there.

The Rig at camp outside Missoula

The next morning, we headed up 12 towards Lolo Pass, which is the boundary between Montana and Idaho.  Beautiful drive through pine-covered mountains and on the Idaho side, the road paralleled the Lochsa River, a gorgeous, clear, rushing river, strewn with boulders.  We passed many folks with rafts and kayaks, probably heading to the Selway down the road.  Caused me to long for our canceled permit on the San Juan in a couple of weeks…..

Hike along the Lochsa

Also on Route 12, we are paralleling the route that Lewis and Clark took during their journey in the early 1800’s.  Realizing that I know very little about this important American expedition, I was gratified to find lots of information about these guys at the USDA center at the top of Lolo Pass.  So we picked up Ken Burns’ documentary about them at the center.  Two rangers at the center gave us brilliant directions about where to find a good hike and then where to camp along Route 12.  Chris had learned from the Good Sam chat room that the campgrounds along Route 12 are mostly closed, but that the Forest Services folks would know which camps had their gates up.

Stock bridge across Lochs

For the suggested hike, we pulled off the road on the right, crossed over the highway, and then on to a very well-built livestock bridge over the roaring Lochsa River to the trailhead.  The trail took us up the other side of the drainage through a partly charred cedar forest and back down again along a tributary of the Lochsa, similar in length and elevation gain to our routine hike on Spruce Creek, but longer.  Perfect!  I am so concerned about turning into a lard-ass, living as trailer trash with no exercise.  So the more we can find hikes like this, the better!

Cedar and flowers

Later, we found the camp that the rangers mentioned – large, beautifully laid out with only one loop open – but not officially opened until late May (ergo, no fees!).  So we waltzed in, picked a lovely spot on the river and settled in.  We positioned our camp chairs overlooking the river for cocktail hour, and later, watched the first half of the Burns documentary.  A great day.