Trip into the Bob with Steve, Andrea, Adin and Zia

Gary and Dona's Trip into the Bob Marshall Wilderness

with

Steve, Andrea, Adin and Zia

August, 2012

(Part 1)

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We have some good friends with two really cool kids, and we've always talked about taking a trip together into the Bob Marshall Wilderness complex near where we live. Their youngest is a heck of a good hiker, but getting into the Bob requires hiking some pretty good distances, and it would be quite a back-packing trip. So we've always planned on a "ride and hike" kind of trip. We don't have enough horses between us for all of us to ride all the time, and besides, everyone doesn't even want to ride all the time. We figured with six horses we would have two or three pack horses and three or four saddle horses. We travel pretty light, and we figured we could easily haul all the gear for the six of us plus food and a little feed for the horses for six days on three horses.

We finally got our schedules lined up and decided to do it. We had our route all planned out and then lightning struck, literally, starting a bunch of forest fires. The road to the trailhead where we wanted to go got closed about a week before we wanted to take off. So we scrambled and came up with a new plan. Our horse trailer only holds three, so we borrowed a truck and trailer from a neighbor for the other three.

On the morning of our departure, I relearned a lesson bright and early... make sure your horse will get in the trailer if he hasn't been in it for a while. Sambo was a bit worried about the inside of the trailer and it took me a while to get him used to it again. After that, we all arrived at the trailhead, packed up, and headed out.


Gary on the trail Photo by Dona	Andrea and Adin on the trail Photo by Dona

Dona, Zia and Adin on the trail	Dona, Zia and Adin on the trail

The first four miles was all uphill, but everyone made it in good shape. Dona rode Sky, Zia rode Ashe, Adin led Lacy with soft panniers thrown over a saddle, and I rode Sambo and led Scheba with the bear-resistent panniers and Poppie with some soft panniers thrown over her saddle.

The trail was through burned over forest all the way to the top, and it was pretty hot. We were glad to get there and stop for lunch, as were the horses.


Dona and Andrea at Lunch	Adin with Ashe

Then it was down the other side. Some of us were faster than others, so we would stop periodically to let the horses rest and graze a little. When the others caught up we would check to see if we needed to switch riders and hikers.


Adin and Andrea on the Trail	Waiting for the Hikers to Catch Up

We were traveling down Jenny Creek to Youngs Creek, still mostly in a burn about ten years old. The burned over forest was covered with a purple carpet of fireweed.


Jenny Creek	Jenny Creek Country	Fireweed

We found a nice place to camp on Young's Creek, put bells and hobbles on the horses and turned them out to graze, and Andrea cooked us up a yummy dinner.


Adin Unloading at Young's Creek Camp Photo by Dona	Zia Helping Set Up Camp Photo by Dona

We went to sleep to the occasional tinkle of horse bells, with no wild jangling; and looking forward to lower Young's Creek and the South Fork of the Flathead tomorrow. (Next)