failed attempt White Mt ICT from Lk McDonald

email to family Sep 9 2019, 1PM MtTime

My overnight parking spot that Labor Day Monday night was adjacent to
a side railroad track occupied by some cars that seemed to be capable
of handling mining ore. Each car had a conveyor-ramp on one end and it
seemed like the main trough-shaped containers might be able to tip up
or have an internal conveyer or plow-like blade, so the material could
"flow" from one container to the next, maybe for unloading.  There was
another main track on the other side of this side track, and another
track about a hundred yards further beyond. These two tracks were
quite busy all night, long trains passing every hour or so in both
directions.

Tuesday morning after looking at maps and considering the weather
forecast calling for one day of sunny weather followed by increasing
chances of rain, I decided not to make what I thought would be a
half-day climb up the ridge into logged terrain that morning, but
instead take what I thought could be a full day hike along the ICT
route up to White Mt from the west side of Lake McDonald, saving the
half-day climb for the next morning.  So I drove the gravel road along
Deep Creek (along which the ICT was routed across the valley -
obviously to take advantage of the road bridge across the creek, and
probably to avoid private property) from Shiloh to the lake, stopping
at a picnic area to read poster signs about the lake/wetland
restoration project (and to use the restroom there) then drove on
around the west side of the lake to find the road leading to the
trailhead.  There were several wrong turns that I took at this point,
as I was sort of fallowing an incomplete image of the map from memory.
There was a separate trailhead right t the lake for a long trail that
ended up at White Mt, through some kind of Land Trust easement,
beginning adjacent to a private homestead with several outbuildings,
but I was looking for a road to drive half-way up the ridge before the
trailhead, following the route shown on the ICT pdf map.  This road
turned out to be a mix of recently logged land and private homesteads,
with confusing private property signs suggesting the road was a
private road. About mid-way up the slope, the road became quite steep
and rutted, but where my maps showed the trailhead, the road just
continued, all other options seemed to be private property. I fould a
turnout to park my car and continued walking up the road. It soon
leveled out past one last private homestead, into a pleasant woodland
roadway, but was curving too far to the south around the ridge from
the peak, and eventually started heading downhill.  There was one
spur-trail that seemed to head north, but it soon dissipated into a
blob of logged paths, I imagined possibly preparing a clearing for a
house, or just wood-harvesting, though I saw no private property
signs.  This was at the base of a steep cliff and would have been a
large effort to bushwhack up the ridge from there.

So I turned around, deciding to go to the ranger station on I95 just
short of Bonners Ferry to ask, but first doing a bit more sightseeing
in the Naples area, which had a maze of bridges for railroads and
roads crisscrossing Deep Creek, and lumber trucks passing through
quaint small-town streets, backdropped by craggy ridgelines of the
Selkirks to the northwest.  Eventually arrived at the ranger station,
got water, gathered my usual bunch of miscellaneous pamphlets and
asked about the ICT trail to White Mt.  They didn't know much about
the ICT, but seemed to notice that the Kaniksu NF map I was referring
to was out of date, with changes to the status of some of the 1sqmi
grids, and some of the roads. I had bought the out of date map in
Superior, Mt, when I first drove into that area from Missoula.
Decided to buy the new version, and spent about an hour in some shade
in the parking lot with the two maps spread out on the hood of my car
transferring my markings of the ICT (colored pencil rectangles marking
the extents of the ICT pdf map, and green "highlight" trace of the ICT
route) from my old to the new forest map.  Not really that many
changes, and in particular, the White Mt issue was still unresolved.
Since I was nearly in town at Bonners Ferry, I continued on getting
groceries at Safeway, gas, and spending the rest of the day at the
library.  Drove back down to Shiloh to overnight again by the RR
track, assuming again that I'd do the half-day climb up the ridge in
the morning to complete that segment of ICT.

Here, I'll close off this thread.