ot and humid today while spending just a bit too much time walking
around town, expecting to answer the phone while the phone was on do
not disturb. Don't know why that keeps getting set! Now I'm giving
myself maybe an hour to write this email (after getting the minimal
location metadata into this batch of photos, and doing some minimal
shopping for fresh foods at a botique downtown grocery store, again
while expecting a phone call. Still have to do laundry, so can't stay
at the library til 10pm. Would have liked to get out of town while
still daylight, but that won't happen. Fortunately I see on my road
map just now that there's a rest area on hwy 90 just west of Alberton
maybe 40 miles out of town, so that will work, good. Next destination
is another hour beyond that, back on 10mph jeep roads headed SW from
the hwy.
That seems to be the theme of this trip, subjecting my Zomberoo to
scary rough roads most of the time, with a little hiking interspersed
here and there just for the break.
So last email I was in Grangeville headed for Elk City area. The road
to Elk City is 45mph highway 14 winding along the South Fork
Clearwater. I left that about a 3rd of the way into town onto FR 492,
which goes up the south ridge from the river for 30ish miles (so, 4
hours driving with a few photo stops) to the west Alt ICT passing
through at Sourdough Peak, which has a very picturesque fire lookout
that is on the list of national historic places. I say picturesque
only partly because of its design, but mainly because of its setting,
a meadowey hilltop currently blooming densely, and buzzing with
bumblebees (which is one of my side projects to photograph as a
citizen science project of the Xerces Society - their Pacific NW BB
Mapping project.) I overnighted there (photographing the sunset from
within the lookout.) Next morning I headed down southwest along the
ICT, hoping maybe to connect with the hike NE I had done from the
Gospel Hump area before Grangeville. But, somehow I got "turned
around in the woods " in the saddle about midway there, after stopping
for a photo of some fungus... Surprised to encounter a lookout nearly
identical to the other one... Debated whether to turn around and try
again, but figured I could move on - the other direction of trail
paralleled the road, and I took that for a few hours, also mostly
wooded rolling ridgetop. Made it back to the main road with still
plenty to time left to explore a third portion of ICT South of Elk
City on FR 1803 up from the Red River Road, skirting Porters Mt, with
some good views of the surrounding ridges. Most of the area I've been
going through was not recently burned, though some logging activity
(which seems more benign than the burns) is evident.
Overnighted at French Gulch on Red River Road, set to take a short bit
of road to a trailhead that broadly circled Elk City. That, the next
morning turned out to be mostly driveable road where the map shows
trail, but the road did eventually peter out into dense overgrown
brush and trees. (A ranger I encountered later commented on my
scraped up car finish, noting that I'd been bushwhacking in my car.)
I guess I could have walked more of the trail beyond that point, could
have made it to Anderson Butte that day, but decided I could try
another section of ICT, this one deep in the Frank Church Wilderness
36 miles along the Magruder Corridor (which is the only road that cuts
through that wilderness area, goes all the way into Montana. Like many
of the other of these roads, it started out smooth and broad gravel
highway, but soon turns into steep rocky rutted creek beds. But I did
make it to my destination at Dry Saddle, in time to hike a portion of
the main ICT (not the western alternate I've been following) to Spread
Peak Point. This area was recently burned, but as a result offered
near continuous views in all directions across nearby ridges to more
distant still snow-patched moutain ranges, not to mention the lakes at
the bottom of the steep slopes on either side of the ridge I was on.
Next morning,in a crisp cold front (34degrees, one ATVer I passed
said) I hiked a short but steep jeep road North along the ICT to
another lookout, on Burnt Knob, this one at the tip of a jutting
pillar of rock, also looking down on a cluster of lakes, with 360
degree views of the wilderness, to distant mountains, though the
nearby ridges all mostly recently burnt.
Backtracked along the Magruder Corridor road, the zomberoo still
intact but in need of gas, which I got an expensive half tank of in
Elk City, also two forest maps, of the Nez Perce and Bitterroot
forests, deciding I needed road numbers not on the state road map book
to find the ICT. I hoped to use the library there,too, before hiking
a third section of ICT with road access in the area, but the school
library there it wasn't open Fridays, (nor Thursdays nor Mondays), and
no Cell much less Data service there for my TMobile radio, so I
figured I had just enough time to make it back to the Grangerville
library before it closed at 6pm. Did that, got my photos copied off
by CF cards and that was all, got more groceries and more gas, headed
north through Kooskia along the Middle Fork Clearwater and then along
the Selway to overnight near Selway Falls, of a next morning hike on
the ICT long Meadow Creek. That was a very overgrown trail, but
overgrown with ripe salmonberries and blueberries, and blackberries,
and plenty of Bumblebees to photograph for that side project. Also
ran into a family of fisherman, carrying their fully deployed poles
(and a baby-backpack) somehow without getting snagged in the
overgrowth. Returned from that, considered the otehr direction of
ICT up the south-facing slope, but at 2pm decided I'd pass and
approach that section from the other end, from the Lochsa.
Backtracked along to Selway to where it joins the Lochsa to become the
MF Clearwater, and then up the Lochsa to that other end ICT at Split
Creek, with still a few hours of daylight with the weather forecaster
threatening hot weather for the next few days, I hiked the trail which
started out along the Lochsa but then switchbacked up the west facing
ridge above Split Creek. Taking several longish breaks, I turned
around short of my intended Split Creek Point, and overnighted a bit
further along the Locksa at Fish Creek, near the 2nd south-ward ICT
section, this time along the Main ICT, not the Western alt that except
for the Magruder Corridor section, I'd been pursuing.
That hike the next day was a full day hike to Huckleberry Butte, again
a spectacularly picturesque point with rugged Mt peaks backdropping a
meadowy ridgetop in full flower. Hopscotched three backpackers doing
a loop in that area which included some lakes and a hot springs. Got
to Huckleberry Butte at 6pm (MDT even though technically PDT there,)
returned just before dark, overnighted across the river at the Sherman
Creek ICT trailhead north of the Lochsa climbing up to the Lolo
Motorway.
The next morning was the chilliest hot spell, a slight drizzle, and I
decided I'd head for the top end of that section instead, which meant
a 25 mile drive along the Lolo Motorway, which turned out to be yet
another rugged jeep trail. I got to the sign for Sherman Creek just
as I was negotiating a steep section of creek-bed-jeep-trail and just
continued on to the next ICT section to Liz Butte. That was a 2 mile
road (that I could have driven had I known) to a cabin. Got
drizzled-on enroute. Again my Zomberoo managed to make it all the way
along the Lolo Motorway, just before dark. I had hoped to have time to
find a place along the Lochsa to wash up before dark, but stopped at
some random camp site with signs that said it would be closed for a
few days in August. Good enough.
Looked at the map and saw Colegate Warm Springs a short distance
further up the road, and figured I might have a chance for a warm
bath the next morning. Took the nature trail there and it did lead to
some shallow steaming pools, but I ended up bathing in a nice sandy
beach in the Lochsa just below, hoping for a little warmth, but was
freezing brisk, refreshing, before my drive over the pass to Missoula.
And now the library is closing.
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