We consider ourselves very lucky to have gotten in almost 2 months of camping in January and February before the world went bonkers. We didn't camp nearly as much as we would have liked this summer, partly due to the obvious disruption courtesy of COVID-19, but mostly because our schedule taking care of the elderly mother-in-law didn't leave much free time for wandering.
We did manage to escape into the out of doors on three occasions this fall. Each trip was limited to 2 weeks or slightly less because of our caretaking schedule. The first was a super short, but much needed, trip to Glacier National Park. We could have easily made it there in a day, but we wanted to turn it into a scenic loop through areas we haven't seen before. So on Day 1 we left home and headed north to catch I-90 west. We decided to camp the first night off I-90 at Exit 5 on the Montana side of the border with Idaho. The Forest Service road here goes to the Hiawatha Bike Trail and has several scattered campsites, we had been here before and stayed at a favorite campsite about 5 miles up the road.
The idea was to approach Glacier from the west via Highway 2. On Day 2, we got back on 90 to Spokane then headed north towards Lake Pend Orielle. We stayed on 2 all the way across Idaho, through Sandpoint and Bonners Ferry and on into Montana. At Libby, we decided to skip the congestion of Kalispell and Whitefish and took a detour on highway 37 north along the shore of Lake Koocanusa. At Eureka, we briefly went south on highway 93 before turning east on Grave Creek Road. Grave Creek turned into Forest Road 114 in both the Kootenai and Flathead National Forests. We camped for the night at a primitive site near a trailhead on the Flathead side of 114, even had time for a short hike after a long driving day.
We did manage to escape into the out of doors on three occasions this fall. Each trip was limited to 2 weeks or slightly less because of our caretaking schedule. The first was a super short, but much needed, trip to Glacier National Park. We could have easily made it there in a day, but we wanted to turn it into a scenic loop through areas we haven't seen before. So on Day 1 we left home and headed north to catch I-90 west. We decided to camp the first night off I-90 at Exit 5 on the Montana side of the border with Idaho. The Forest Service road here goes to the Hiawatha Bike Trail and has several scattered campsites, we had been here before and stayed at a favorite campsite about 5 miles up the road.
The idea was to approach Glacier from the west via Highway 2. On Day 2, we got back on 90 to Spokane then headed north towards Lake Pend Orielle. We stayed on 2 all the way across Idaho, through Sandpoint and Bonners Ferry and on into Montana. At Libby, we decided to skip the congestion of Kalispell and Whitefish and took a detour on highway 37 north along the shore of Lake Koocanusa. At Eureka, we briefly went south on highway 93 before turning east on Grave Creek Road. Grave Creek turned into Forest Road 114 in both the Kootenai and Flathead National Forests. We camped for the night at a primitive site near a trailhead on the Flathead side of 114, even had time for a short hike after a long driving day.