As July was sliding by, I kept intending to head into the hills on a pack trip. But things kept coming up, and I kept having to put it off. I had a narrow window left before more obligations got in the way, so I hurriedly packed and made a grocery list, and took off on 31-July with my two horses, Poppie and Daiquiri. I would ride one and pack one, sometimes alternating on different days. The plan was to make a loop in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.
We started up Lodgepole Creek, about 30 miles from the house. It's an uphill trip for four miles to Young's Pass, then an 18 mile downhill to the official origin of the South Fork of the Flathead River, at the confluence of Young's and Danaher Creeks.
Poppie and Daiquiri were in good spirits, although Daiquiri felt a bit burdened. I was carrying 2 pounds of feed per horse per day, in addition to my own food for two weeks. But we motored up to the top with barely a rest. The trip up is through an area that burned about six years ago.
Once over the top, we were into virgin forest, with some pretty large trees. A mile or two down the other side, we had to pull up. The horses rested while I went to work...
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| Poppie and Daiquiri near Young's Pass | Why One Carries a Saw |
Young's Creek is delightful, and it travels through some pretty country. We camped the first night about nine miles down, in a small meadow with good feed for the horses.
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| Young's Creek Country |
The next day we went down to the confluence with Danaher Creek, and on down the South Fork of the Flathead into Big Prairie. The Forest Service has a pretty fancy (for the back country) setup in Big Prairie. I stopped and talked with the ranger there, then we continued on to camp further down river.
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| Big Prairie | Looking North | Ranger Station |
North of Big Prairie, we arrived at White River Flats, where we spent a layover day. It's where the White River dumps into the South Fork of the Flathead. The only bad thing about camp was it was quite a ways to water, so every morning I would ride Daiquiri bareback and lead Poppie down the the river.
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| North Fork Flathead | Old Growth Pine Forest |
I stopped every so often along the way to fish a little. Usually just for an hour or so at camp in the evening or morning. The fishing was pretty entertaining. You're not allowed to keep anything over 12". I had fish dinner planned on a couple of occasions, but on those occasions I wasn't able to catch anythin under 12"! The fish are mostly cutthroat trout, but I did catch a few whitefish. There are also bull trout in the system.
On this trip I had four meals of "Tasty Bites", a kind of instant dinner I found at the grocery store. Simply put the pouch in water and boil for five minutes. They were a bad idea. Don't ever buy any. Based on what I think is Indian cuisine, the did not appeal to my palate at all, had too much curry, looked like crap (literally), and were generally unappetizing. I ate them anyway, since it was what I had.
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| I caught some fish... |
I wanted to get up to the Chinese Wall, a ridge of mountain cliffs that form the continental divide through much of the Bob Marshall. So on my layover day I took Poppie and headed up the White River towards Haystack Mountain. I rode Poppie about half way up, then tied her and hiked the rest of the way.
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| White River Country |
There are three summits to Haystack, one at the south end of the wall, and two small humps a bit further southeast. It appeared on the way up that the two humps were higher, so I went there first. But from there, I could see the real summit was at the end of the wall.
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| Chinese Wall from Haystack Mt. | Haystack Mt. |
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| Cairn on Haystack Mt. | Haystack Mt. -- Chinese Wall |
From Haystack you can see White River Pass, one of the many passes over the Continental Divide in the Bob. Amber and I rode up to White River Pass some years ago, then bushwacked around and climbed up to Hermit Lake. It was fun looking at where we had been. In the photo (you probably need to look at the big version) there is a small lake in the lower left part of the picture. That's not Hermit Lake. Hermit is over the saddle in the upper right corner, down in a small basin on the other side.
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| White River Pass | Pass to Hermit Lake |
Looking west, you could see down the White River valley to the valley where the South Fork of the Flathead runs; and beyond that, the Swan Range in the distance.
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| West down White R. to North Fork Flathead Valley with Swan Range beyond |
It was hot on the way up, so I stripped down to keep my shirt dry and stay warm when I needed them. The total elevation gain was about 3800 feet, although Poppie did about 2000 of that. She got a good rest while I slogged on up...
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| Obligatory summit photo |
From the White River, I continued north down the South Fork to the Big Salmon Creek watershed. There I turned west and went up to Big Salmon Lake.
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| Looking up Big Salmon Lake Valley to Holland Peak | Big Salmon Cr. Pack Bridge |
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| Looking W from Outlet | Big Salmon Lake | Looking E from Inlet |
I made a nice camp on a small point part way up the lake. It was barely big enough for the horses a reasonable distance from the lake, and had a little grass for one night's feed and still leave enough for the rest of the critters.
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| Evening | Sunrise |
Then I went on up the creek. I took an afternoon and hiked into Albino Basin, an alpine cirque which is some of the best grizzly habitat I'd encountered. It was a bit of a nerve-wracking hike, as the huckleberries were ripe, the elderberries were ripe, the thimbleberries were ripe, the bushes were head high, the alders were over my head, there was bear scat all over the trail, and there were numerous "tunnels" through the brush where the bears had gone barreling down the mountain. I kept my hand not far from my bear spray and made sure the fingers remembered how to operate it more or less automatically. Fortunately, since an encounter is always a bit chancy, or unfortunately, since I would have liked to see some bears, I didn't see any. It looked like I was a few days too late, as the scat had dried out a little. I was going in about 3:00 pm, so it was getting towards evening on the way out. It would be a pretty basin to backpack into and camp, but I'm not sure I would like to camp there when the bears were around.
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| Albino Basin |
The next day I decided to try to climb Holland Peak. It is one of the highest peaks in the area, and had an interesting looking ridge walk up from this side. The map shows a trail up to timberline on Tango Point. The map is old. The trail is even older, and has been abandoned for decades. It was a gawd-awful bushwack up steep slopes, covered with huckleberry bushes, elderberry bushes, thimbleberry bushes, alders, downed timber and other stuff. Like the hike into Albino Basin, this part was through excellent bear habitat. I wasn't quite as worried; I was making plenty of noise thrashing my way up. Along the way, I found one sawed log, a reminder of the old trail; and a few pieces of wire, once maintained for communication from a fire lookout on the point. There wasn't a proper lookup; just a place where someone would hike or ride to and hook up their phone to report. It took three hours to get to Tango Point. From there it was a clear shot along the ridge to the summit, but it was quite a ways with a few ups and downs to get there. It was a fun scramble, with wonderful views. The total elevation gain was about 4600 feet. I was glad to have worked up to it with other hiking earlier in the trip and before the trip!
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| Holland Peak |
From the top of Holland Peak you look directly down on Ramble Lakes. There is an obvious path leading from the lakes up to the summit, so apparently the peak is climbed fairly frequently from that side.
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| Ramble Cr Lakes | Gary on Holland Pk |
From Holland Peak you get a good view in all directions, although with fires burning to the west it was a bit difficult to see. In the photos of the east ridge and Tango Point, my route pretty much went along the spine of the ridge. It's not really as hairy as it looks...
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| Looking E to Big Salmon Lk | Looking S | East Ridge | Tango Point from East Ridge | Holland Pk from Tango Pt Ridge |
Since I was traveling alone, I tried to remember to leave a note when I went off exploring. I'd fold it up and leave it on the front tent line. It was always a bit sobering to think about and go through the process, but seemed like the smart thing to do.
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| Note on Tent |
Further up Big Salmon Creek is Big Salmon Falls, where I stopped for lunch. I made camp again further up Big Salmon Creek, on the east side of the mountains forming the western boundary of the Bob. From there I hiked up to Pendant Lakes and a divide that leads down to Upper Holland Lake, where Amber and I had hiked some years ago.
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| Big Salmon Falls | Pendant Lakes |
Then it was on up past the end of Big Salmon Creek, over a small saddle, and down Shaw Creek. This was an easy ride, and on this day I packed Poppie for the third time this trip. But part way up the trail she banged one of the panniers on a tree along side the trail, and it spooked her. She started bouncing around and trying to race up the trail. I got her calmed down and checked the pack, which seemed to be fine. But each time I started off again, she would go nuts. I finally decided it just wasn't smart to do this alone, and stopped and switched back to riding her and put the pack on Daiquiri. Poppie was fine with me riding. I finally decided the pack saddle must dig into her somehow, and if I'm going to pack her I should use a different setup.
We moved down to Shaw Creek, near Shirttail Park, in the headwaters of Gordon Creek. I hiked up part way to Doctor Lake, but the trail was abandoned, overgrown and boggy. It was clouding up and starting to thunder and lightning, so I turned around and headed back to camp. That night was a pretty good lightning show. I was worried about fires being started, as I was in pretty heavy timber with now good places to hide in a fire. At least not with the horses. There were places I could go if I turned them loose. I didn't really like my options, and I spent a nervous night. The next morning looked to be clearing, so I hiked up Georges Creek towards Georges Lake, but that trail also fizzled out. I was pretty wet from hiking in overgrown forest after a rain, and decided that I'd had enough slogging through the brush. Maybe another trip.
We packed up and worked our way down Gordon Creek, where we had a nice camp and I spent a layover day wandering up and down the creek fishing, and the horses got lots to eat and a good rest.
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| Gordon Creek Country |
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| Gordon Creek Camp |
One morning a nice Mule Deer buck wandered into camp. I told him he needed to wise up, as hunting season was only a month away...
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| Muley Buck |
Then it was down to the South Fork again, and up it to the mouth of Youngs Creek. On our way, I met two trail crew who told me of some new fires on Pilot Peak, one of the peaks between Young's Creek and Gordon Creek. I had contemplated going out that way, but decided not to because I wasn't sure of the status of the trail.
We had a nice camp at the confluence, then headed out the way we had come. As I was loading up a packer for the Forest Service came through and asked where I was headed. He suggested not going up the Danaher, as there was a new fire up that way that could easily cause trouble if it did the wrong thing. We did the 22 miles out Young's Creek to the Lodgepole trailhead in one day; the horses were in good shape after two weeks work and traveled pretty steadily, with a break for lunch and another short break at the top of the pass. I'm sure Daiquiri was happy to have a much lighter pack on the way out!
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| Youngs Cr - Danaher Cr confluence | Confluence Camp |
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| Packing out |
When I got back I learned that the night of the big lightning storm, while I was hoping for rain and pondering possible actions in case of a fire, a bolt came down in the middle of Kleinschmidt Flat and started a grass fire. It burned about 600 acres before it was put out. It was about two miles as the crow flies from the house, and nothing but grass and one dirt road in between. I'm glad the wind wasn't blowing my way, and I'm glad I didn't know about it at the time, or I would have done a lot of worrying...
All in all, a wonderful trip! Now it's time to plan the next one!
This page last updated on 2013-10-23.
