A good portion of the last few months have been spent attempting to fill our freezer with fish, restocking the wood pile for winter, and getting the garden going. June has brought both snowstorms and 90 degree temps. After all that we headed up into the headwaters of the Clearwater for a few days of backpacking up Kelly Creek.
When we pulled into the trailhead parking lot we were the only ones there. The trip was off to a good start. The trail was plenty brushy but it sees enough traffic that we didn’t have to contend with any blowdown. The wildflowers were in full bloom, and the temperatures were supposed to top out around 70. Sounds like a good recipe for an enjoyable backpack trip.
The Kelly Creek trail follows the creek, but for most of its length the trail is far above the river, so there were no stops for fishing on the way in. After about four miles we found our camp and settled in for a couple days.
We took a day hike further up the creek the next day. We turned around at about mile 7 with a good view of Kelly’s Thumb.
There were a few places where the trail was close enough to access the creek so after lunch we deployed the fly rod and went to work. After a while I found one that was ‘looking up’.
Back at camp we enjoyed the shade as we watched the water flow by.
It was back to the trailhead on day three. We saw plenty of snakes (20), but no people on the way out. We didn’t go very far but we were still able to ‘get away from it all’ for a few days up Kelly Creek.
Since we came all that way (yes it’s relatively close to home but it still takes four hours to get there!), we spent another day on the North Fork before heading home.
I like our homemade dehydrated backpacking food, but the smoked pork chop cooked over the Firebox twig burner stove sure was tasty after a few days on the trail.
After only one nice cutthroat on Kelly Creek it was fun to get into a few more trout before we headed back home.
I’m already thinking about the next trip back.
