May was quickly approaching and rivers in Oregon were closed. Our trip down the Owyhee River we planned for 6 months was doomed. Time to make other plans. It is pretty easy to find remote spots in the Owyhee country, so it seemed like the logical choice was to head for the same country, but switch from a river trip to a truck camping trip. Before we knew it our days off rolled around. It…
Well, we went all the way to Montana to float the Smith River, but it was an awfully long drive to not see a sight or two on the way home. So with that in mind, after we pulled off the Smith we stayed a night in Missoula and then it was on to a day trip on the Bitterroot river just outside of town.
After leaving Stanley and the Sawtooths we headed south through Ketchum for a quick restock for the remainder of the week and then we were off over Trail Creek Summit to the headwaters of the Big Lost River. It was a homecoming of sorts, going back to a place I worked over 20 years ago. But mainly it was a visit to one of my favorite places of high mountains, lakes and streams. This is high country, with valleys over 7,000 and elevations topping out over 12,000. October gets to be a bit late for a visit due to cold overnight temperatures in this country, but it’s hard to get away much earlier in the year, so we made the best of it.
The first destination was Kane Canyon. We were hoping to get up to Kane Lake, which may just be my favorite high alpine lake, but quickly encountered snow on the trail which slowed us down. Snow, ice and short fall daylight led us to turn around with about a half mile left so we could get back to the trailhead and find a camp before dark. It was still nice to get up into the mountains.
We were back down to the trailhead with plenty of light left. Someone had cut some large rounds of Douglas-fir and left them at the trailhead. A portion of two rounds was all we needed to top off our firewood supplies for the rest of the trip so we quickly did just that and then headed down canyon in search of a camp. The canyon is full of beaver dams and willows and we kept saying, “There ought to be a moose in there!”, and sure enough there was. Just a couple of horns and some flicking ears at first, but then he came out to say hello.
