We’ve been to Montana plenty of times. But we haven’t really focused on seeing a good portion of the state. Our first big bite in 2026 was to travel through some of the backcountry starting north and heading south in the western portion of the state. We took a day to drive nearly to Canada, and then settled in for a few days at a picturesque lake before making our way back south for the first half of July. July started out cool and rainy, much better than it ended, hot and smoky. The clouds and rain that started out our trip seem so distant now in the oppressive August heat and choking smoke, it seems like a distant memory. Our views of the mountain above the lake were obscured on arrival, but we could tell this was going to be a great place to spend a few days.
The real test of being at the right spot were the loons on the lake. They carried on during the day as well as overnight. There isn’t much better than the song of a loon on a deep woods lake.
The next day the sun came out on and off and we were able to get a view of the mountains.
We had our packraft along and spent a lot of our time fishing. The fishing for cutthroat was great, and the lake had crystal clear water.
Since the 4th of July holiday was coming and we didn’t want to battle the crowds looking for another campsite somewhere unknown, we just settled in for five days. It wasn’t hard.
As the 4th passed we packed up and headed down the road. The next day found us travelling down the Yaak Valley, where we spotted a moose and her calf wading the river and finding themselves something to munch on.
The next morning we made a stop to see the very impressive Kootenai Falls. The morning light and rising mist from the falls made it tough to capture.
Just downstream from the Falls is the Swinging Bridge, spanning the river. Yes, it starts to swing on your first step. The first few steps were a little disconcerting.
The second half of our trip generally followed a portion of the new Montana Backcountry Discovery Route (BDR). We’ve followed segments of several BDR’s in other states, and they are good routes to keep you off the pavement and show you places in the backcountry you may not otherwise discover. They generally follow two track roads even though they are originally intended for adventure motorcyclists. The downside we discovered with a just released route is that there were a lot of motorcycles travelling north as we made our way south. This would not be a bad thing on it’s own, but we found out the hard way that lots of bikes spinning their way up forest roads loosens up a lot of rocks, and of course, after a few days of following the route a particularly sharp rock punctured a huge hole in one of our tires.
All’s well that ends well, and that tire ended up being replaced by warranty. After picking up a loaner tire until our new one came in, we continued the trip.
Our final destination was the Seeley Lake area. What a contrast to the other places we had been in Northwest Montana! Along the way we had several campgrounds either to ourselves or nearly so. Seeley Lake and the surrounding areas were chock full of people. We found a small out of the way lake to spend the weekend paddling before hitting the Clearwater Canoe Trail for our last day of the trip. The canoe trail is great because you can float three and a half miles of river and only have a mile and a half hike back to the put in for a loop float and hike. Alas, we didn’t bring a camera on the trip, but we did capture scenes from the float in the video linked at the top of this post, so check it out.
We planned to spend another day or two on the Blackfoot River before travelling through Missoula to pick up our new tire, but the Blackfoot was even more crowded than the Seeley Lake area. Even if we could have found a spot, the crowds were just too much. We found a spot off the beaten track for one more night in the woods and headed home to see if the garden was still alive, and to re-pack for part two of our Montana explorations. More to come….
