Trout Creek & Thompson Falls, Mt.

Fri - Fri, July 16th -23rd


Friday we left Idaho and headed back to Montana. We went to Trout Creek (30 miles north of Thompson Falls on the Clark Fork River) to spend a few days on a lot owned by my uncle Tony.



Here's a couple of pictures of our "traveling home" on Tony's land. Just a few hundred yards down the road is a Kootenai National Forest campground and a public access boat launch.








It was very peaceful here and we went for hikes everyday, sometimes twice a day.











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I call it Montana Backwoods Retro.

John playing on the computer at the park by the river in Thompson Falls. We had no phone or computer reception where we were camped, so we had to drive into town to get a connection.

I saw these guys when I was out hiking by myself one day. There were deer everywhere. There were signs around warning that we were in grizzly country, so when we heard deer rustling around in the woods, we got a little nervous.

We saw them within 20 yards of our camper most mornings and evenings. We saw a doe with twins a couple of times and a couple of bucks together one time.

I saw a buck in the woods and then noticed this little fawn sitting in the grass not far from the road near our campsite. When I approached the camper the next night at dusk, I saw a skunk just ambling away from the camper and into the woods.

Have you ever seen toilets with two sizes of rings. This is how they were at the forest campground. I'm sure it's a good idea for small children, esp. for those vault toilets at campgrounds. Those toilets can be kind of scary, anyway. But it does give an interesting new twist to the age-old argument of putting the ring down. Which one?

They had a very nice boat ramp and dock at the campground. The river was quite calm most of the time that we were here. It was hot, 90+, most of the week. I went swimming here to cool off.

Here's a view of the train bridge from the swimming beach.

Views from the dock at sunset.

The campground was pretty full most of the time we were here. The only facilities were vault toilets and water spigots, but it was a nice campground for $10.00 a night. No reservations.

We also went hiking at nearby Ross Creek Cedars County Park. It was a beautiful place to hike, but I didn't take any pictures.

Last view at the boat access area.

It was usually very busy here, but I managed to get a few pictures between the boats loading and unloading.

I took this the last day we were here after a big wind storm the night before. We were pretty nervous during the storm watching the trees bending way over in the wind, after our recent experience with the falling tree. Winds whispering thru the pines has taken on a new meaning for us, but there was no place to go. We were totally surrounded by forest.

Friday we head back to Helena to pick up our grandson and his friend. We will be taking them to Eugene, Oregon to play in the Babe Ruth Regional Tournament with their team. We will be stopping in Portland to see John's Aunt Dorothy and her son and daughter-in-law on the way.

Tarra