ID-MT-WY?: Desert Rat Venturing Outside His Comfort Zone Seeks Input

[MarkBC]

Gotta say it's kinda weird that snow may affect my trip...weird considering that already two months ago in southern Utah there were a couple of days that were "too hot" to hike.

But I camp in the dead of winter in snowy-cold areas, so I'm OK with that -- not looking for a beach-lounging experience!

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

Mark some teaser photos of the Beartooth Pass area. There are some nice lake campgrounds on the western side of the Beartooth.
Frank

 

[ski3pin]

Mark, since you mentioned Boise to Stanley, when we were last in that area we took Warm Lake Road east out of Cascade and hit the Landmark Stanley Road (I think I'm correct on this) and took it across a couple passes, through Bear and Elk Valley, and intersected highway 21 just west of Stanley. Heard wolves howl the one night we camped. It is improved dirt road, lots of dispersed camping (surprisingly busy), and a nice drive. Take a look at your maps if interested at all. Have a great trip.

 

[takesiteasy]

Have a great trip. Nice country you are traveling through.

 

[sourdough]

Thanks to the amazingly-in-touch-with-the-West Mr. Foy, (and he's an east-coaster!) I was alerted to the fact that the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier is still being plowed...and that was before the new snow this week. Thank you, Foy!

So I plan to start my trip at the south end of my range -- in the Beartooth Highway area. There may be new snow there, too, but the highway itself has been open for weeks already.




I'm leaving Saturday (June 21) heading towards Boise and then probably up to/through Stanley and Challis on a route headed to the northeast-of-Yellowstone Beartooth area. Probably cut across northern Yellowstone to get there, but not camp in Yellowstone -- too many tourists this time of year.

Then I'll wind and wander my way more-or-less northwest without a definite itinerary yet. May or may not get up as far north as Glacier.

Snow-covered ground may affect my itinerary...but I'd rather deal with snow -- at least it's beautiful! -- rather than the wildfires-and-their-smoke that I was going to face last year!

If you want the roads less traveled, Stay out of crossing N.Y. Take NF 261 into Yellowstone. Then S.E. thru Dubois on 287/26 to Riverton and up through the Bighorn N.F. Central Wyo. is less traveled. Marty Stouffer filmed a lot of "Wild America" in the Bighorn N.F. Beautiful and quiet. Cody, Wyo. to 212 Beartooth hwy. via 120/296 is a beautiful route with little traffic.

 

[Foy]

Thanks to the amazingly-in-touch-with-the-West Mr. Foy, (and he's an east-coaster!) I was alerted to the fact that the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier is still being plowed...and that was before the new snow this week. Thank you, Foy!

You're too kind, Mark. All I do is what fellow North Carolinian Charlie Daniels advocated in the early 1970: "Take a trip and never leave the farm", only my excursions are fueled with maps and a computer.

I'm leaving Saturday (June 21) heading towards Boise and then probably up to/through Stanley and Challis on a route headed to the northeast-of-Yellowstone Beartooth area. Probably cut across northern Yellowstone to get there, but not camp in Yellowstone -- too many tourists this time of year.

Ah yes, about halfway between Challis and Salmon, trailhead a quarter mile off of US 93, is Gold Bug Hot Spring, a jewel if there ever was one.

You can look at crossing into MT at Monida Pass on I-15 and take the gravel road route east through the Centennial Valley to Red Rock Pass, thence dropping into ID at Henry Lake, near West Yellowstone, MT. The only people you're likely to see in the Centennial are scorched and haggard CDT backpackers, so be sure to have "trail magic" on board (extra water and snacks).


Snow-covered ground may affect my itinerary...but I'd rather deal with snow -- at least it's beautiful! -- rather than the wildfires-and-their-smoke that I was going to face last year!

Safe travels, and enjoy!

Foy

 

[Cayuse]

If you are headed up through Challis and might make it to Salmon or don't mind a bit of a detour check out Goldbug Hot Springs, absolutely spectacular and the hike in keeps the traffic down a bit.

 

[MarkBC]

Thanks, all, for the ideas, suggestions and encouragement.
I'm outta here...or soon will be.

 

[Smokecreek1]

Enjoy your run, since that area is also new to me too, can't wait for your TR and pictures to start---unless you are having to much fun to send them !

Smoke

 

[longhorn1]

Help, please:
I'd like suggestions from WTWers for places I should go/see/stay on a visit to the area, roughly, circled in the map below:

(maybe the circle should be extended a bit further south into central Idaho -- imagine that I've drawn it so)

The mid-'90s was the last time (and to a large extent the only time) I've visited the area I'm considering visiting again, and that previous trip was a mostly-driving whirlwind road-trip tour (camping out of the back of my '92 Toyota pickup).

I'm mostly interested in input about areas not in the national parks. I may not even visit them this trip, except perhaps cutting across the northern tier of Yellowstone after crossing Beartooth Pass (as I did on that '90s trip).
I found the area around Beartooth pass amazing, and I told myself that I'd be back to explore; that was almost 20 years ago.
OK...and Glacier's Going to the Sun Highway was so world-class fantastic on that '90s trip that I could easily repeat that part, too.

But aside from the obvious (the national parks), what's cool to see? Or if not especially cool, what's nice, pleasant to visit?
Limitations/Qualifications: 1) I'm not going to do any river trips. 2) I'm probably not going to do any backpacking...unless absolutely necessary. That is, I'd rather do a 20-mile day hike to see something cool than two 10-mile backpack days. But I couldn't rule it out.

I've found that I don't have an image/model/map in my head of this area and its features for planning purposes (as I do for most of Nevada and Utah and Arizona and southeast California) so I'm really starting from scratch, from newbie ignorance, for any non-national-park stuff ... Of course I have Benchmark Atlases for ID, MT, WY, and WA...but I know very little about what I'm looking at.
And so, I'd like suggestions for nice places to see and stay, nice routes to take to get there and around.

I'll be driving my F250 with FWC Hawk.
I'm considering doing this trip soon -- like, early/mid August and spend 2 weeks-ish out there.

Thanks.

If you want to spend a night in a real bed or grab a great meal, you should stop in Big Timber at the Grand Hotel. It is a bed-breakfast hotel with a combination of rooms with full baths or rooms with restrooms down the hall. Breakfast comes with the stay and it is wonderful, as is Sunday Brunch or any meal in the restaurant. The Grand used to be a place sheepherders and cowboys would stay while driving their herds through town. I always love the Beartooth Highway. There is another place we haven't gone, but plan on and that is the Bitterroot Valley. There are 3 towns along the route , Hamilton, Darby, & Stevensville and there is a lake with a campsite. www.bitterrootchamber.com

 

[Lighthawk]

Mark,

From what I have come to believe are your traveling preferences, I can offer the following suggestions:

Rock Creek Canyon, east of Missoula- Rock Creek Canyon runs about 60 miles south from its mouth at I-90 around 20 miles east of Missoula. The first 10 miles is paved and developed, then it turns to graded gravel and runs another 31 miles upstream to MT 348 west of Philipsburg. You may also stay on gravel past MT 348 to MT 38, the Skalkaho Highway. The headwater streams branch off upstream (south) of MT 38 and drain the Anaconda-Pintlar Wilderness Area astride the Continental Divide. From the end of the pavement at MP 10, it's a beautiful drive in a fairly narrow canyon with many opportunites to see mountain sheep, moose, eagles, and deer. A good half-dozen primitive NF campgrounds are sprinkled along the way, and streamside disbursed campsites abound. From MP 0 to about MP 35 are within the Lolo NF or the Beaverhead-Deerlodge NF.

Pioneer Mountains Scenic Byway- The Byway is all paved and runs N-S from the Grasshopper Valley southeast of Jackson, MT north over a divide then down the Wise River to the village of Wise River along MT 43. There are about a half-dozen or more NF campgrounds and unless the rules have changed, some very nice streamside disbursed campsites in the vicinity of the Little Joe CG and Vista Point.

Lemhi Pass and Sharkey's Hot Spring- Lemhi Pass is where Lewis and Clark first crossed the Divide and discovered something OTHER THAN an easy glide downstream to the Pacific. The imagery is powerful driving up from the MT side to the BLM visitor's kiosk just below the pass. Park the truck there and hoof it the couple of hundred yards on up the road to the pass for the same view they saw. Two roads descend the ID side from the pass. Agency Creek Rd is straight ahead and is signed as steep and winding. Warm Springs Road runs northerly and stays high along the dividing ridge for a couple or three miles, then drops down lower on the ID side. Sharkey's Hot Spring is a natural spring within the sagebrush-covered hills at point which the BLM has piped the flow into a nice pair of large jacuzzi-like pools. There are bathrooms and changing rooms and a concrete apron around all. Pretty nice facility for having a soak, catching a few rays, and enjoying an early Fall afternoon. You can drop on down to ID 28 and enjoy the fun outdoorsy town of Salmon, ID, just a few miles north along ID 28.

Gold Bug Hot Spring- This is a gem among gems. Gold Bug is just off of US 93 at a point around 18 miles south, along the Salmon River, from Salmon, ID. A couple or three hundred yards up a gravel road from 93 is a parking area and trailhead. The trail is around a mile and a half and picks up around 1,000' in elevation, much of it in the last quarter mile or so, where it is fairly steep. The reward at the end is easily the most spectacular natural hot spring in Idaho. A steeply plunging coldwater stream accepts the high-volume hot water input from the spring, and over the years many pools have been constructed by visitors. The view from the pools is back to the west, down the valley which you ascended coming in, across the Salmon River (which you can't see from the pools), to the big brown hills on the other side of the river, several miles away. Gold Bug is clothing-optional, and it gets regular visitors. Best to depart the trailhead EARLY in the morning, as by noon-ish the entire trail and the pools are in the direct sunlight, but are shaded until then. Heading up early would provide the greatest likelihood of privacy at the pools, too. Two retired guys share the residence at the trailhead, and unless their habits have changed, they head up to the pools for a soak each morning, weather permitting. We met them and thoroughly enjoyed their company back in 2011 and look forward to soaking with them again soon.

Magruder Corridor- This may really be your style. The Magruder is a two-track FS road running 110-120 miles from Elk City, ID, to Conner, MT. It was once known as the Southern Nez Perce Trail. The Magruder bisects the Bitterroot-Selway Wilderness and the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, and when those two are combined with another Wilderness which abuts them on the western side, they comprise nearly 4 million acres of Wilderness. Long spur routes lead from the dividing ridge, which much of the Magruder runs, down to the Salmon River on the south and to the Selway River on the north. Taking in some of the longer out-and-back spurs, I can easily envision spending 3-5 days traversing the Magruder.

Big Sheep Creek and the Centennial Basin-- The Big Sheep Scenic Byway is a gravel route of around 60 miles running from I-15 in the vicinity of Dell or Lima, MT, through the Tendoy Range, thence north to MT 324 west of Clark Canyon Reservoir. I've not run it, but it traverses some territory I am familiar with, and it's "on the list". Similarly, the headwaters of the Missouri River (Lewis and Clark were mistaken when they declared the spring just below Lemhi Pass as the source of the Missouri) lie south and southeast from Lima, MT, and a network of graded gravel FS and county roads take you deep into the Centennial Valley, all the way to Red Rocks Pass, where you can enter Idaho near Henry's Lake and not too far from West Yellowstone, MT. Other roads traverse the Gravelly Range and the Ruby Ranges and take you to either Dillon, MT or Virginia City, MT. It's all within the Beaverhead-Deerlodge NF.

The Big Hole- For my money's worth, there is no more spectacular alpine valley in the Lower 48 than the Big Hole. Traversed by MT 43 and MT 278 from about Wise River, MT (town) to headwaters south of Jackson, MT ("town" more like a wide spot in MT 278), the valley floor is at 6,500', the glaciated and snowcapped Beaverheads, Bitterroots, and Anacondas form the western wall, and the forested West Pioneers form the east wall. It is called the "Land of 10,000 Haystacks" due to the use of the old style "beaverslide" stacking apparatus and the 25-30' high haystacks created by the beaverslide rig. The Big Hole is around 50 miles N-S and is up to 20 miles wide. I can heartily recommend the NF campground at Twin Lakes, southwest of Wisdom. Twin Lakes CG is a good 25 miles of mostly gravel roads from Wisdom, and a fairly narrow and rocky last two miles keeps out most towed campers. The two glacial lakes are at the foot of Hirschey Peak and mark the terminal moraine of the glacier which carved the most perfect "U" shaped valley you'll find anywhere. It's like standing inside a glacial geology textbook, with a several hundred acre lake, a snowcapped peak, and a forested valley surrounding you.

That should be enough to have you perusing the MT and ID Benchmark Atlases for a while. Get back on the forum with any questions or comments. This has been my "stomping ground" since 1978, and I can provide many more suggestions as you ponder the trip.

Foy

We're heading to ID next week for an extended trip and this is great info, Foy.

 

[Foy]

Hey, great! I hope the Lighthawks can get up there and will post some reports!

As of just two weeks ago, DW and I started planning a July 2015 trip to Elko, NV for the Silver State Stampede, thence up through the Independence Mountains and Jarbidge Mountains of northeast NV, entering ID at Rogerson on US 93. Thence on to Gold Bug HS, Sharkey's, Lemhi Pass, Bannack, MT for Bannack Days, and on into the Pioneers for the obligatory drive up Comet Mountain. Then a short hop over to Rock Creek for a few days of fishing and sitting still. Return via I-90 to Crow Agency, MT, US 212 to Belle Fourche, SD, south through the butte and mesa country west and south of the Black Hills, to Chadron, NE, and diagonally across the Nebraska Sandhills enroute home. It'll be at least 3 weeks, maybe 3.5. Can hardly wait.

Looking forward to hearing about yours, Andy.

Foy

 

[Lighthawk]

We're seriously considering the Magruder corridor : )

 

[Cayuse]

We're seriously considering the Magruder corridor : )

You could add the Lolo Motorway to the Magruder Corridor with just a bit of blacktop in between. More info at http://www.idahostateatv.org/publications/Driving_the_Lolo_Motorway.pdf

 

[Lighthawk]

Excellent suggestion, Cayuse! I just added the pdf to our dropbox account, hopefully for access on the fly while traveling.

 

[sourdough]

We're seriously considering the Magruder corridor : )

Big With D/S motorcycle riders. Much more interesting drives in ID,MT, NE OR. Travel on most any road following a river and you'll see more interesting things. I've traveled all over the PNW back roads and Magruder is a novelty thing and not very scenic.
Hwy 95 north of Boise to Canada, a beautiful road in it's self, ties into many east west roads, Hwy 12, 200 or 2 that are beautiful. I'd suggest a couple river roads like Grangeville, Id. to Elk city via HWY.14 and then cut north to the Selway R. and follow down to Hwy 12. Pierce,Id. to Superior, Mt. following up the Clearwater R. is beautiful and quite. The follow the St. Joe R. Start in St. Regis, Mt. cross over the pass to St. Maries, Id. thru Avery,Id. is another great route. Riggins, Id. follow the Snake R. east and up to Burgdorf Hot Springs and on to McCall, ID. Explore from Joseph, Or. the Snake River Canyon area. My point is there's much more interesting trips. There all good.