Kootenai National Forest, Montana - May 6th to 7th, 2022
Sometimes things don’t go as planned. Our main purpose for camping in Kootenai National Forest was to see the Ross Creek Cedars Scenic Area. Bad weather and bad timing got in the way.
We drove from Flathead Lake to Bad Medicine Campground in the Kootenai National Forest of Montana. Just like the drive to Flathead (Flathead Lake, Montana - May 4th to 5th, 2022), this was another scenic drive. There were more snow-capped mountains, more lakes alongside the highway, more forests, and more wildlife. This time we saw deer, wild turkeys, and what we think was a golden eagle.
Just past the town of Libby, we came across signs for Kootenai Falls, so we stopped to check it out. There was a short trail over to the falls and to a suspension bridge. We followed the trail to the falls. The falls are on the Kootenay River and are pretty impressive. There is a great view of the falls from a wide open area on top of layered rock where you could sit down and hang out for a while. Several people were doing just that. Kootenai Falls is a county park and seemed to be popular. The other fork in the trail leads over to the suspension bridge. We did not go over to the bridge.
It was lunch time when we reached Bad Medicine Campground. It is first come/first serve, but it was still the off-season, so we had no problem getting a site. When we arrived, there was only one site taken. We chose a site in the other loop, so it seemed as if we had the place to ourselves. There was no camp host, but the vault toilets were open and the fresh water spigot was on. Only one other camper came in later in the evening.
After lunch, it started to rain, but not hard. During lulls in the rain, we would go for a walk, either down to the boat ramp on the lake or around the other camp loop. The ducks and/or loons would fly over to the other side of the lake when we showed up at the dock. The nearby snow-capped peaks would peer out every now and then from behind the clouds.
The rest of the time we were hanging out inside our warm, dry Red Tail Lodge (our van). As we were sitting there, Ann felt something crawling up her leg. She pulled up her pant leg to find yet another tick! Keith quickly grabbed it. We’ve never had an issue with ticks before and now we’ve had three ticks within 24 hours! (Flathead Lake, Montana - May 4th to 5th, 2022) Even before we encountered the first tick, Keith had ordered some tick remover kits on Amazon, as if he had a vision of things to come. However, we don’t pick those up from the delivery location for another four days.
There was enough of a lull in the rain for Keith to cook our hamburgers outside on the butane stove (paid link). Our burgers had the added bonus of some fresh rain water on them. Needless to say we ate dinner inside Red Tail Lodge that evening. The rain continued heavily through the night.
It rained Saturday. And rained. And rained. The main reason we were camping in Bad Medicine Campground was to see the Ross Creek Cedars Scenic Area. There is a one mile loop trail through the cedar grove. The trail is at the end of a three mile road that starts just one mile from the campground. However, the road is closed over the winter. When we drove by it on the way to the campground, the gate was still locked. We could still hike to the grove; however, that meant over seven miles instead of one if we parked by the gate, close to nine miles if we started from the campground. We had just hiked close to eleven miles just two days ago and the thought of hiking over seven miles in the cold rain, to look up at a grove of giant trees with the rain in our faces, did not seem very inviting to us. We normally try to work around the weather or dress appropriately and go despite the weather. This time we decided to give in and skip the cedar grove. We’ll have to catch them the next time we are passing through the area.
Just because we were not hiking to the cedar grove does not mean we stayed inside our Red Tail Lodge the whole time. The sun would teasingly peep out from behind the clouds every now and then, sometimes with the rain still falling. Saturday morning, when the sun first briefly appeared, we grabbed our rain gear and headed out for a walk. We remembered that we had crossed a pretty stream on the drive into the campground, not far from the closed road that led to the cedars. Of course it started raining again before we reached the stream, but we continued anyway. The stream was pretty, even in the rain. It was flowing pretty hard and fast. We stopped at the information sign at the closed road. The road was scheduled to re-open the following Saturday. We were just one week too early. On the road back to the campground, there were quite a few rocks on the pavement that had rolled down from the rocky hillside. We entertained ourselves by taking turns kicking the rocks back to the side of the road. Some of the larger rocks we would not want to hit with our van, so we felt like we were doing a good deed by clearing them from the road.
We managed to get out of the van a couple more times in the afternoon when the rain lightened up a bit. We walked down to the boat ramp on the lake again and around the other campground loop. Just long enough to get damp and want to climb back into the warm Red Tail Lodge to warm up and dry off. The rain let up around dinner time, just long enough for us to cook dinner outside again.
There was no cell service in the campground, Verizon or AT&T, so we spent some quality time together. There were a few podcasts and videos we had downloaded along with some e-books. We took turns reading “A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail” by Bill Bryson out loud to each other. We also played a few rounds of backgammon on a little magnetic set we bought in Helena. We had not played in years. The small magnetic board is not as nice as a real backgammon set, but we had forgotten to pack it. Keith had purchased one before we left home, only to realize that we still had a set from years ago. Then we forgot to pack either one. So now we have three backgammon sets. We’ve already added it to our packing list for Season Five so we don’t forget to bring one of the nice ones with us next time.
When things do go the way you want them to, you need to adjust your plans. Even though we didn’t get to see the cedar grove, we still had an enjoyable time.
Check out our related video: Kootenai National Forest, Montana
(Ann)