Catching up with a busy summer: Our Lake, Patrol, Bitterroot, Northwest Montana state parks

Visiting with Patrol Mountain lookout ranger Samsara Chapman Duffey

One of my favorite views ---- looking down the ridgeline from Patrol Mountain

 Summer weather has defied my expectations of fire and smoke.

Yes, it's been abnormally hot, but we've experienced periods of cool and wet to off that.

That has allowed us to hike more than I thought possible including recent trips to Rocky Mountain Front/Bob Marshall Wilderness favorites like Our Lake and Patrol Mountain, visits to more Montana state parks in Northwest Montana with an opportunity to enjoy an early and generous huckleberry crop.  And, there's been the pursuit of wildflowers like the bitterroot.

I particularly enjoyed my annual trek up Patrol Mountain, a 3,000 foot - 11.4 mile climb to visit Samsara Chapman Duffey, who is spending her 29th summer as lookout over vast stretches of the Bob Marshall and Scapegoat wilderness areas.  I think it was my 26th visit her and her dog, Mae, on a gorgeous and lightly smokey afternoon.  I got to the top, which included wading Straight Creek, in about 3 hours 10 minutes.  I've been climbing this mountain yearly (and sometimes more) for 44 years.

Classic Our Lake scenery

I was surprised to see snow at the bottom of the Our Lake approach waterfall and in the great gully on the lake's south flank.  We tested the snowfield in the gully and found it too icy to ascend.  I make a mistake thinking I could immediately upclimb the adjacent hillside, wasting time and ruining our opportunity to do the Our Lake-Headquarters Pass traverse.  It was still a great day of hiking.

Katie put me on the road to tag Northwest Montana state parks starting with Milltown and Beavertail.  The Milltown Park, in particular, is a fascinating history lesson on dam removal.  Beavertail is really a quiet camping spot just east of Missoula on the Clark Fork.  Despite being high summer we found few folks at either spot.

One of the Buddhas

At the center of the Buddha garden

Then it was on to a couple of U.S. 93 attractions:  the Garden of a Thousand Buddhas and the St. Ignatius Church.  The Buddhist site is quite spectacular, and a real oddity for Montana, not to mention its placement on an Indian Reservation.  I'll return to this spot and spend more time.  There's much to learn here in a large area dominated by Buddhist statues and prayer flags.

Up the road at St. Ignatius we stopped at this mission church, a place I hadn't been in nearly 50 years, and marveled at the more than 50 murals in the church done by Brother Joseph Carignano, a self-taught Italian.

The St. Ignatius altar piece with murals

Then it was on to our overnight stay at Quinn's Hot Springs Resort, a beautiful and pricey spa where we had a spectacular meal and enjoyed the canyon scenery not far from where the Flathead flows into the Clark Fork River.  We had a nice rest.

Onward the following day along the Clark Fork River, we stopped at Thompson Falls State Park with its lovely camping area, sand beaches and tall Ponderosa pine trees.  In the city we also enjoyed the interpretive dam park. 

Katie at Thompson Falls State Park on the Clark Fork

We stopped at the earthen Noxon Rapids dam and power plant  and then, it was on to Libby up the Bull River Valley beneath the towering Cabinet Mountains Wilderness Area.  The driving here made me a tad uncomfortable with dense conifer and cedar forests right up to the road.  I was fearful of animals jumping out in front of the car.  It was a lovely drive, though I've concluded I prefer the open East Side of the Divide.

I had forgotten how sparsely populated this area of the state is.  All the hype is on the rich out of staters moving in, grabbing up land, blocking access, constructing mansions and sending property values into the stratosphere. 

We got a run down motel in Libby, but had a nice meal in a local brew pub.

The Kootenai Falls cascades

The Swinging Bridge over the Kootenai River

Our final day we hit the Kootenai Falls and swinging bridge county park to stretch our legs. Then we stopped McGregor Lake State Park between Libby and Kalispell, not much more than a campground and a gorgeous lake.  No real hiking here.  

On the way home we visited in Pinnacle and friends, enjoyed a great lunch from their garden produce and were introduced to this tiny settlement just west of Essex.  Tons of huckleberries, the best crop I've ever seen, waylaid us.

We rested in East Glacier Park at Serrano's for a Mexican meal and then back home.

We had covered 725 miles over these three days.

We had seen so much it will take me time to absorb it all.

Yes, I enjoyed the trip.

The bitterroot bloom near Rogers Pass