Twin Lakes--Reflecting the Big Sky

Twin Lakes, Beaverhead County, Montana
Taken 9/6/08

I’d like to say a word for the cowboy.
The road he treads is difficult and stony.
He rides fer days on end with jist a pony fer a friend.
I sure am feelin’ sorry fer the pony.

--Oscar Hammerstein II

Beaverhead County is Montana’s largest in area and last Saturday, September 6th, we drove most of it. Well, not really, but when you’re driving over Forest Service Roads at five to ten miles per hour for four hours it sure feels like you’re never gonna get home again. Between the rocks and the ruts, the truck bounced and jittered, and the camper swung back and forth so violently, that I feared the truck bed would separate from the cab or the weight of the camper would have us on our side.

Admittedly, my DeLorme Montana Atlas bears a 1994 copyright, but do roads just disappear? Our friend Stan had the same atlas, but with a 2001 copyright, and his showed the same roads. Both books claimed we were on Forest Service Road 945.1, but all the signs said 944. And try as we might we could not find the connecting road that would get us to what my atlas named Road 12. Stan’s atlas called it Road 945.2. Maybe that should have told us something.

Our friends Stan and Leon live on top of a ridge near Stevensville, Montana. Whenever they can, they like to put their canoe on top the Jeep and head out for some fishing and canoeing. I had mentioned that if they ever wanted company, they should let us know. Thursday, September 4th, Leon sent me an e-mail saying that they were planning on spending the upcoming weekend at Twin Lakes in the Big Hole Valley. While I’ve spent lots of time in the Big Hole, I’d never been to Twin Lakes.

Kevin had, as he grew up in Beaverhead County, and when I started looking online for geocaches around the town of Wisdom, Kevin informed me that we wouldn’t be going anywhere near Wisdom. Now as I looked at the map, the only alternative to driving through Wisdom was to take a Forest Service road that followed the base of the mountains. Still I bowed to his experience and said “Drive on!” We met Stan and Leon at the supermarket in Stevensville, and they agreed to try our route, so the four of us took off on Captain Clark’s 1806 route through the Bitterroot and Big Hole Valleys.

On their return from the Pacific in 1806, Lewis and Clark’s Corp of Discovery camped at Traveler’s Rest, now a Montana State Park just a few miles south of Missoula. On July 3rd, the company split with Lewis heading north and Clark south. Lewis and his men spent July 4th on the site of what is now Missoula and sure enough, there is a plaque right downtown saying “Lewis slept here.” Well, maybe not in so many words, but that’s the jist of the message—and right in front of a motel, too.

Clark took his men and headed south, traveling up the Bitterroot River and crossing the Continental Divide at Gibbon’s Pass. You can read about the whole Lewis and Clark adventure here. And while we’re on the subject of Lewis and Clark, all Montana school children learn that the Corps of Discovery followed the Missouri River upstream to the point where three rivers come together—the site of present day Three Forks, Montana. We learn that the three rivers are named the Madison, the Jefferson and the Gallatin—named for the Secretary of State (and fourth US President) James Madison, President Thomas Jefferson, and Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. Wikipedia will even tell you that Lewis himself named the rivers on the way west in 1805. What isn’t so well known is that while traveling up the Jefferson, they came to another confluence of rivers which they named Philanthropy, Philosophy and Wisdom. Today we know these rivers as the Ruby, the Beaverhead, and the Big Hole. The Big Hole flows right past the town of Wisdom—the only place name where Lewis’s appellation still exists. (I hesitate to suggest that there is no philanthropy or philosophy in Montana.)

The Big Hole is also the site of one of the great tragedies of US history. In 1877, a band of Nez Perce Indians, led by Chief Joseph, fled their homeland in northeastern Oregon heading east. The US Government was determined to place all native peoples on reservations, and this group of Nez Perce resisted. They crossed the Idaho panhandle and entered Montana Territory at Lolo Pass. Like Clark, they traveled up the Bitterroot and crossed the Continental Divide into the Big Hole Valley. Believing themselves safe, they camped for several days in early August, only to be awakened by gunfire. The cavalry had arrived. Roughly one-tenth of the encamped Nez Perce were killed—men, women and children, but the survivors were able to force the US military to retreat. After the battle was over, the Nez Perce continued east, through Yellowstone Park then north across central Montana until they were finally stopped at the Battle of the Bear Paw, near present day Chinook Montana. The Nez Perce had traveled 1100 miles, fighting US forces the entire way. When captured at the Bears Paw, they were less than 40 miles from the Canadian border. Chief Joseph’s speech of surrender remains today one of the great pieces of American literature. It bears repeating in its entirety.

________________________________________

Surrender Speech In the Bear Paw Mountains
- October 5th, 1877
________________________________________

I am tired of fighting.
Our chiefs are killed.
Looking Glass is dead.
Toohulhulsote is dead.
The old men are all dead.
It is the young men who say no and yes.
He who led the young men is dead.
It is cold and we have no blankets.
The little children are freezing to death.
My people, some of them,
Have run away to the hills
And have no blankets, no food.
No one knows where they are-
Perhaps they are freezing to death.
I want to have time to look for my children
And see how many of them I can find.
Maybe I shall find them among the dead.
Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired.
My heart is sad and sick.
From where the sun now stands
I will fight no more forever...

Hinmahtoo Yahlatkekeht of the Nez Perce
("Thunder Rolling in the Mountains." or "Chief Joseph")

I cannot visit the Big Hole Battlefield without choking up. Even today, as I write of these events, I feel my throat closing and my eyes filling. The only other places I’ve visited that have the same effect are Culloden Moor in Scotland, and the Gallipoli battlefields in Turkey. Even as a child, the Big Hole spooked me in a way that Montana’s other “famous” battlefield, The Little Big Horn, did not. As the bumper stickers say, “Custer had it coming.”

This weekend we were not stopping at the monument. We had driven up the Bitterroot on US 93, and turned east crossing the Continental Divide at Chief Joseph Pass. We drove into the Big Hole on Montana 43, turning off the highway just east of the monument.

Land of 10,000 Hay Stacks
Taken 9/7/08
Big Hole Valley, Montana

The dirt road ran in a southwesterly direction across the hayfields of the Big Hole Valley, known locally as the home of 10,000 hay stacks. Relatively smooth, as dirt roads go, our route was taking us toward Forest Service Land and the Continental Divide and Idaho. It was also supposed to take us to another Forest Service road that would connect up with the road to Twin Lakes. Or so both DeLorme and Kevin assured me.

Passing numerous groups of hunters out for the opening weekend of archery season, we followed a game warden right up to the point where he headed west toward Idaho and we turned south toward Twin Lakes. I wasn’t watching the odometer, but Leon tells me we’d traveled twenty miles from the highway when we finally gave up and turned around. Oh we didn’t want to give up, but our road had become two tracks, branches were breaking off as they scraped the camper, and there was a log down across the “road.” Somehow Kevin managed to get the F250 turned around without having forty acres, and we started back toward the highway.

Not the end of the road, but enough for us
Taken 9/6/08
Beaverhead County, Montana

Still believing our maps, we explored a couple of roads that forked off road 944, but in the first case, we came to a fence and a no trespassing sign, and in the second we found ourselves at an impassable irrigation ditch. Giving up, we returned past all the hunters and turned east on Montana 43. We were going to go through Wisdom after all.

The road to Twin Lakes was in better shape than Forest Service 944, but it was still a dirt road, and it was still slow going. This time, sixteen miles after turning off the pavement, we found ourselves at a beautifully maintained campground on the shore of the lower of the two lakes. We built a campfire and Stan and Leon set up their tent. As we were carrying our house on our back, or rather the truck’s back, Kevin and I just sat back and watched.

Twin Lakes sits below the mountains of the Continental Divide on the Montana side of the Montana/Idaho state line. At 7200 feet, the campground was higher than our last excursion—Pat’s Knob, but the weather was crisp and clear. The lakes looked inviting, but we decided that we’d wait until after dinner to get out on the water. Unfortunately, by the time we finished eating and cleaning up the campsite, it was too late to canoe.

I won’t speak for anyone else, but I slept well Saturday night, and when I awoke Sunday morning, Stan and Leon had a fire blazing and were off hiking along the lake. The water was glass smooth, and reflected the mountain scenery to perfection. As you look at the scenes in my Picasa gallery, you’ll assume that some of the photos are upside down. Nope, it just that I aimed at the water and not the sky.

Reflections in a clear blue lake
Taken 9/7/08
Twin Lakes, Beaverhead County, Montana

As we ate breakfast, clouds started moving in and the temperature dropped. Remembering how cold we had been on Monday, neither Kevin nor I were keen on getting out into the middle of the lake in a rain storm. As it turned out, Stan and Leon were just as happy to leave their canoe on top the jeep, so none of had a chance to glide cross that beautifully clear water. We all agreed that Twin Lakes was worth another trip—this time without exploring the National Forest’s back roads.

Typical Montana Ranch--what a view!
Taken 9/7/08
Big Hole Valley, Montana

On the way out, Kevin stopped frequently so that I could document the scenery. We had lunch at Fetty’s Café, in business since the 1930s, and this time I can really recommend a place. Kevin’s burger was moist and my salad and chili were fresh and tasty. The waiter was cute and with tip, our lunch came to $25.00. I’ll go back to Fetty’s.

And by the way, I found two of the three geocaches I was seeking in the Wisdom area. Can’t wait to get back over there.

Muskrat Love--or were they Beavers?

And they whirled and they twirled and they tangoed
Singin and jingin the jango
Floatin like the heavens above
It looks like muskrat love

--Willis Alan Ramsey

Looking out our backdoor
Taken 8/26/08
Harper's Lake, Montana

Around ten years ago, I wrote up my ideal first date on my geocities website. On the page I titled “My Country-Western Page,” I wrote:

My dream date would be a weekend camping on some mountain lake where we could swim, fish, canoe during the day, and explore each others' minds and bodies in front of a campfire at night. I'm incurably romantic, and expect everyone else to be as well, which often leads to disappointments in this very real world.

About the same time, I was taught the “magic” of having a written list of twenty motivational reasons. One of my twenty reasons, still visible on the white board in my study, is to have a water-front second home.

This past week, Kevin made both dreams come true.

For a place that is mostly high-mountain desert, western Montana has lots of lakes. Some are big. Flathead is the largest fresh-water lake west of the Mississippi. Some are not. As lakes go, Harper’s Lake, the southernmost in the Seeley-Swan chain of lakes, could pass as a large pond. Still, it’s big enough for fishing, swimming, canoeing, and I’d even be comfortable putting my sailboat in its water—if it had a boat ramp.

One mid-August Sunday, Kevin and I, along with our friends Mike and Norman, drove east from Missoula up Montana highway 200, then north on Montana highway 83. We were out for a Sunday Drive, it’s true, but we were also scouting locations for an upcoming camping trip. Having gone to the trouble of putting the camper on the pickup for the Meet Me in Montana gathering, we decided that we really needed to put our toys to use. We checked out Salmon Lake, Seeley Lake, Lake Inez, Lake Alva, and Holland Lake. We looked for relatively uncrowded campgrounds with close access to the water. A few days later, we drove up Rock Creek, again with Mike and Norman, looking at the Forest Service campgrounds on that blue-ribbon trout stream.

Now I’ve been living in western Montana for most of the past thirty-three years. I’ve spent lots of time at Seeley Lake, and have had my sailboard, sailboat, and/or canoe in most of the waters in the valley. In all those years, I’ve driven past a sign pointing to the Harper’s Lake Fishing Access, just west of highway 83 about a mile north of Clearwater Junction. I’ve always wondered about this lake, but never did I turn off the highway to see the lake for myself. Not before that Sunday drive, that is.

Water Lily (one of hundreds) on Harper's Lake
Taken 8/26/08

Heading north on 83, turn left to reach the Harper’s Lake Fishing Access. Roughly one half mile west of the highway, you learn that there are two lakes, one on each side of the dirt road you’re on. The lake to the north is Blanchard Lake, and the one to the south is Harper’s. There is a boat ramp and parking area for Blanchard Lake, but you have to traverse a steep bank to get to Harper’s. A little further on, there is a campground where for the princely sum of $6.00 a night, you can pitch a tent or park your camp trailer.

Driving into the campground area, we noticed a large motor home parked on the east bank of the Harper’s Lake. We also saw a few tents pitched on that same bank. What we couldn’t see was a road that would take us there, and the Clearwater River, between us and those camped on the lakefront, had no bridge. Afraid to ford the river in our Swedish-built Ford, we knew there had to be another way to access those campsites, and we set out to find it.

After a couple of misadventures, we found a dirt road leading north off Montana 200, just west of the Clearwater River bridge. Following the river upstream, we passed many primitive campsites, and finally reached Harper’s Lake and the motor home. We also found a beautiful campsite on the point where the Clearwater River flows into the lake. While the site was occupied on the weekend, it would likely be free midweek. We knew we had to return.

We had talked about inviting other people along, but in the end, on Tuesday, August 26^th, Kevin, Minnie, Gypsy and I took off, Kevin driving the F250 with Minnie riding shotgun, while I drove the Volvo with Gypsy. By taking both vehicles, we could leave the camper parked and do any shopping or sightseeing with the car. It made good sense at the time.

We settled into our lakefront “home” Tuesday afternoon. Kevin built a campfire in the fire pit, and I took the canoe out for a cross-lake paddle. The dogs explored the area and declared this good. The site was surrounded by chokecherries, rosehips, and a white berry I could not identify. Mike drove up from Missoula, bringing his German Shepherd Kira along. We feasted on tacos and chips, and relaxed around the fire while the dogs played. As evening came on, ducks swam cross the lake and back, kingfishers flew overhead, and some mammalian creatures glided through the water, disappearing just before reaching the lily pads. My first thought was that we were seeing beavers crossing the pond, but as we never saw a tail, Mike suggested they were probably muskrats. I can’t think of muskrats without thinking of the song “Muskrat Love,” so that tune filled my head for the next several days.

Rainbow over Harper's Lake
Taken 8/27/08

Overnight, we heard the unmistakable sound of rain on the camper’s metal roof, and Wednesday we woke to a gray, wet morning. As it rained most of the day, we stayed in the camper playing two-handed Mah Jong. With evening, the sky cleared leaving a rainbow visible just across the lake. After dinner, we headed up the river for a walk with the dogs.

Thursday gave us the chance to use that second vehicle we’d driven. Fourteen miles north of us, Seeley Lake beckoned. A resort community of 2,500 residents, Seeley had the hardware store, grocery store, and restaurants we needed to replenish ourselves and our supplies. At Rovero’s Ace Hardware, we picked up a wasp trap to help us deal with the constant threat of yellow jackets drawn to all the fruit around us. At the Ice Cream Shop, we had burgers, fries and shakes for lunch—setting us back $15.00 for the two of us. Trash bags were the main item on the list for the Valley Market, and by mid afternoon we were back at our lakefront cabin, er camper.

Thursday evening, Kevin decided he had to have steak for dinner, so back to Seeley we drove, reaching Lindey’s Steak House just after they opened at 5 pm. Now I’ve eaten at Lindey’s before. It’s a Seeley Lake tradition, with a history going back 40 years. I learned years ago that you don’t take a vegetarian to Lindey’s, because the restaurant takes its “Steak House” appellation seriously. What I had forgotten was just how limited Lindey’s menu is.

Consider what comes next a rant, or a warning, whichever you prefer. After seating us at our window table overlooking the lake, our waitress placed a signboard on the floor at the end of our table. This was our menu. It consisted of three choices, that’s right, 3! At the head of the list was “Lindey’s Special Sirloin” at $27.75. Next was the “Premium Sirloin” at $26.65, and finally the “Chopped Sirloin” at $19.95. Yes! A hamburger patty for twenty dollars. Those are your choices, take ‘em or leave ‘em. The waitress explained that all selections were the same size, but the Special was really worth the extra dollar. As part of the dinner we got green salad with the restaurant’s special “blended dressing,” “greaseless hashbrown potatoes,” watermelon rind pickles, garlic toast and coffee or tea. Apparently iced tea doesn’t count as it was a dollar extra on our tab. I admit that it’s been a while since I had eaten at Lindey’s, but I was expecting dinner to run $20 each, not $30.00. I also would have appreciated a green salad that was more than chopped iceberg lettuce and a dressing choice other than something that looked and tasted like a combination of French and thousand island—without the pickles. When the entrée arrived, the potatoes looked like a white brick, and the iced tea was bitter. The toast looked like someone had taken an old baguette, sliced it thin, and tossed it in the skillet with some garlic butter. In fairness, the steak was superb, but at least in my opinion we were paying almost thirty dollars each for a meal where only the steak was edible. One taste of the potatoes left me happy that I finally had a reason for refusing to eat carbs. I did order a side of sautéed mushrooms, and they were quite good, but with the tip, our dinner for two came to $75.00. A bit pricey for steak, if you ask me. It will be a long time before I return to Lindey’s.

Friday morning I awoke realizing that Monday would be a holiday and I had to do some banking before the end of the month. While Kevin slept in, I jumped in the Volvo and drove into Missoula where I showered at home, fixed coffee, and headed out to the bank. Wednesday evening I had misplaced the lens cover for my 70-300 tele-zoom macro lens, so I stopped at The Dark Room to replace it. While there, I looked at some really neat lenses to add to my dream list, and expressed an interest in finding a 2x tele-extender. Lo and behold, they had one, used, and it fit both the Nikon D80 and the Sigma 400 mm telephoto lens I have. As they’d had the lens for a while, the shop dropped the price to a point where I couldn’t help myself. OK, the last time I priced this particular piece of equipment, Ritz Camera wanted $400+. The Dark Room let me have mine for $100. How could I say no?

Back at camp, I set off to see just what I could photograph now that I had length on my side. The Picasa gallery I set up for this trip includes several shots taken with the 400mm lens and the 2x extender. Suddenly those ducks were a lot closer than before.

Clearwater River (Near Montana Highway 200)
Taken 8/29/08

Saturday afternoon, Mike and Norman joined us for steaks and corn on the cob. Mike had purchased the steaks at Costco and had marinated them in teriyaki sauce. The corn came from local Missoula-area gardens. With some baked beans on the side (thank you, Jay Bush), we had a superb meal for a fraction of the cost of Thursday’s steaks. Mike and I took the canoe out for a spin around the lake, and a fun time was had by all.

Relaxing in the shade after dinner, I woke to the fact that I had my second home on the water. And the best part is that I can take my “home” to any waterfront I want. Hmmm. One more of my twenty reasons I’ve realized in the past few years. The canoe, which has been languishing in the backyard for the past seven years, finally got some use. We were out on the lake every day but one. I’ll admit to being averse to canoeing in the rain.

Kevin and I had already decided that we’d head home on Sunday, so when we awoke to torrential rains, we weren’t terribly upset. It did mean gathering up the wet lawn chairs, hammock, and fishing gear, and loading the canoe onto the camper in the rain, but such is life.

On the way home, we stopped at McNamara’s Landing on the Blackfoot River for a fine breakfast. We pulled up to the Missoula house around noon, and reflected on what a wonderful time we’d had. We continue to learn about each other, and find that we can take most setbacks in stride. We’re now talking about taking the camper north. Kevin has never been to Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies, and I’d like a chance to visit that area again—with the digital camera.

By the way, Saturday evening, a couple of fishermen directed their boat a little too close to one of those swimming mammals we'd been watching all week. The mammal's back went up, the tail came out, and WHAM! Hmm, guess they were beavers all along. Too bad about the Muskrat Love.

The death of my good friend, Jim Kriley, forced me to re-evaluate my own priorities. As I wrote in my most recent blog, Jim lived his life at the highest levels of self-actualization. It would be a disgrace to his memory for me to strive for anything less. This means getting out and doing what I love. A week on the water with a good man and two great dogs. As I look at my life, I am indeed blessed.

Canoeing with Mike on Harper's Lake
Taken by Kevin Kerr
8/30/08